Command Structure Most of the commands of the Southwest and South Pacific Areas which would execute the joint Chiefs' orders were already in existence. (For details see Louis Morton's forthcoming volumes on strategy, command, and logistics in the Pacific, and Milner, Victory in Papua. For South Pacific organization, see right) General MacArthur, as Allied Commander in Chief, had organized his General Headquarters (GHQ), Southwest Pacific Area, on U.S. Army lines. Directly under Sutherland, the Chief of Staff, (Sutherland, a lean, spare, dedicated man, and an exacting taskmaster, was somewhat less than popular with some of the officers who commanded forces directly under GHQ, apparently because they felt that he, personally, tried to take over part of their authority. But his worst enemies have never questioned his professional competence.) were the four standard general staff and three special staff sections. Each section was headed by an American Army officer. Officers from the American Navy and from the Australian, Netherlands, and Netherlands Indies armed forces served in the most important staff sections, but in comparatively junior positions. (G-3, for example, contained a substantial number of U.S. Navy and Allied officers, and such subordinate sections of G-2 as the Allied Intelligence Bureau, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, and the Allied Geographical Section had large numbers of Allied officers.) On the surface GHQ was a U.S. Army headquarters, but its responsibilities and authority were joint and Allied in nature. It was an operational headquarters. Under GHQ in Australia were three other tactical headquarters-Allied Land Forces, Allied Naval Forces, and Allied Air Forces, whose names indicate their functions. (Chart 1) Allied Land Forces was commanded by an Australian, General Sir Thomas Blarney, and was theoretically responsible for the tactical direction of all Allied ground troops, less certain antiaircraft units which were controlled by Allied Air Forces. Under Allied Land Forces - was the U.S. Sixth Army, established in the area in February 1943 under command of Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger. Included in Sixth Army were Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger's I Corps, the 2d Engineer Special Brigade, and the 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment. The 1st Marine Division was under Krueger's operational control. (GHO SWPA GO 17, 16 Feb 43, in GHQ SWPA G-3 Jnl, 16 Feb 43. The antiaircraft units, two antiaircraft coast artillery brigades that were controlled by Allied Air Forces, were assigned to Sixth Army.) The First and Second Australian Armies, many of whose units were still in training, were part of Allied Land Forces. The main tactical headquarters which operated under Blarney during early 1943 was New Guinea Force, a largely Australian headquarters responsible for the conduct of operations in New Guinea. GHQ usually established a temporary advanced echelon at Port Moresby, New Guinea, shortly before the beginning of each operation. Allied Naval Forces was commanded by Vice Adm. Arthur S. Carpender (inevitably called "Chips") of the U.S. Navy, and included the U.S. Seventh Fleet (concurrently commanded by Carpender) and large parts of the Australian and Netherlands Navies. The most important component of Carpender's command was the VII Amphibious Force, organized under Rear Adm. Daniel E. Barbey in early 1943. Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney, an American airman, led the Allied Air Forces which consisted of the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force Command, Allied Air Forces, under Air Vice Marshal William D. Bostock. Kenney also commanded the Fifth Air Force but for tactical purposes it was run by the Deputy Commander, Brig. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead who led the Advanced Echelon at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan, p. 99.) All national forces serving under these tactical headquarters were administered and usually supplied by their own service elements. U.S. Army Forces, Far East, commanded by MacArthur, was responsible for administration of the Sixth Army, the Fifth Air Force, and U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest Pacific Area. This last, under Maj. Gen. Richard J. Marshall, had the responsibility for logistical support of American ground forces. (GHQ SWPA Stf Memo 3, 19 Feb 43; USAFFE GO 1, 26 Feb 43, adv copy. Both in GHQ SWPA G-3 Jul, 19 Feb 43.) Australian Line of Communications units in Allied Land Forces supplied the Australian troops. Soldiers fighting in New Guinea under New Guinea Force were supplied by a U.S.- Australian organization known as the Combined Operational Service Command which had been created durino, the Papuan campaign. Most echelons subordinate to GHQ had functioned during the Papuan campaign and by mid-1943 were operating with an efficiency born of this experience. Geography The forthcoming campaigns would be fought in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Bismarck Archipelago. Many places in these islands bear the names of outstanding figures in the history of exploration: Torres Strait, Dampier Strait, Bougainville, and D'Entrecasteaux Islands. Other names like New Britain and New Ireland are of more pedestrian origin, and the Bismarck and Solomon Seas were named during World War II. (Nothing is named for Meneses, who first visited New Guinea in 1526, nor for Mendaha who discovered the Solomons in 1568. But the whole group, the islands of Guadalcanal, San Cristobal, Santa Isabel, and Florida, and Point Cruz on Guadalcanal and Estrella Bay at Santa Isabel retain the names given by Mendana.) Despite the familiarity of many place names, the area was one of the least known and least developed in all the world. Further, although there is perhaps no ideal place to fight a war, the New Guinea-Bismarcks-Solomons area was one of the worst possible places. (Map 3) All the islands have much in common, and much that is common is unpleasant. All have hot, wet, tropical climates. All are mountainous. All are heavily jungled. All are pest-ridden and full of tropical diseases, especially malaria. None has motor roads longer than a few miles. There are almost no ports with piers and quays to accommodate large ships. The native inhabitants are Melanesians, most of them barely beyond the Stone Age. Cannibalism and headhunting were suppressed only recently in areas w ere British, German, Dutch, and Australian governments exerted their authority. During World War 11 there were rumors that some of the New Guinea natives, freed by the Japanese conquests from the white man's restraining influence, had reverted to their ancient practices. New Guinea, the largest island in the area and after Greenland the largest island in the world, is about 1600 statute miles long, 500 miles from north to south at its widest point, and has an area estimated at about .112,000 square miles. Its most distinctive geographic feature, aside from the jungle, is the great cordillera that runs the length of the island. This cordillera consists of a number of parallel eastwest mountain ranges which narrow into the Owen Stanley Range in the Papuan peninsula. The highest peaks reach over sixteen thousand feet into the sky. The mountain valleys that are cut by such rivers as the Sepik, Raniu, Markham, and Bulolo are several thousand feet above sea level, and the climate is pleasant and relatively healthful. There are no really large rivers in New Guinea, but the Markham, which flows into Huon Gulf, and the Sepik and Ramu are several hundred miles long. The 600 mile Sepik, flowing between the Victor Emmanuel Range and the Torricelli Mountains, is navigable by steam launch for 3oo miles above its mouth. Between the mountains and the sea are swampy lowlands and vast stretches of tropical rain forest so thick that the sun never penetrates the treetops to dry the ground and no underbrush ever grows. At the outset of the war there were no motor roads of any significant length. There were short roads in and around the main ports and gold fields and innumerable native footpaths, or "tracks." As both Allied and Japanese forces had demonstrated during the Papuan campaign, overland travel was fantastically difficult. The best ways to travel were by water and by air. However, both the Australians and Japanese were, in the first part of 1943, engaged in ambitious transmontane road-building projects. Before the war the Australians had exploited air travel to the utmost in developing the gold fields of the Bulolo Valley in the mountains southwest of Salamaua. They had avoided the difficulties of overland travel by cutting airstrips in the flatlands of the valley, then flying in gold-mining machinery, building materials, and, to add to the amenities of life in the attractive uplands, even race horses. Across Vitiaz and Dampier Straits from New Guinea's Huon Peninsula lies Cape Gloucester, the western tip of New Britain, which curves northeasterly to culminate in Gazelle Peninsula and Rabaul. New Ireland, long and narrow, parallels the long axis of the Papuan peninsula so that it, the Admiralty Islands, part of New Guinea, and New Britain enclose the Bismarck Sea. New Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralties, and other islands form the Bismarck Archipelago. Southeast of Rabaul, and northeast of the Papuan peninsula and the Louisiade Archipelago, lie the Solomon Islands. This 600- mile-long doublechained archipelago was found by Mendafia in 1568, but his calculations of longitude were so far wrong that- two hundred years went by before white men found it again. Carteret, Bougainville, Surville, Shortland, and D'Entrecasteaux sighted or visited the archipelago between 1767 and 1793, and French geographers eventually concluded that these were the islands Mendafia had found. The area was divided politically. That part of New Guinea west of longitude 1410 east belonged to the Netherlands. Papua was an Australian possession with the status of Territory. Northeast New Guinea, the Admiralties, New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, and Buka made up the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea; Australia took them from Germany in World War I and was awarded a League of Nations mandate over them. (In 1947 the Mandated Territory and Papua were consolidated as a United Nations trusteeship.) The Solomons southeast of Bougainville are, politically, the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, established by Great Britain in 1893 to suppress blackbirding. A crude comparison may give a general idea of the size of the area. If a map of the New Guinea-Bismarck Archipelago-Solomon Islands area is superimposed on a map of the United States, with the western tip of New Guinea's Vogelkop Peninsula at Seattle, Washington, Milne Bay at southeastern New Guinea lies in Colorado, and the Solomon Islands lie in the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys. Coastwatching In early 1943 the key points of this huge area, except for Port Moresby, Milne Bay, Goodenough Island in the D'Entrecasteaux group, and the Guadalcanal-Russells-Florida area of the SoloMons were in Japanese hands, but Allied intelligence agencies were able to keep a fairly close check on enemy troop, ship, and plane movements by means of radioed reports from observers operating behind the enemy lines. These observers were the coastwatchers, members of an organization, the Coastwatching Service, established before the war as part of the Directorate of Intelligence, Royal Australian Navy. Their territory originally embraced New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomons, but later islands of the Netherlands Indies were added to the network. Initially the coastwatchers were all British, Australian, or New Zealand civil servants or planters, commissioned in the Australian armed forces, but as the war progressed qualified men from the American forces were also assigned. The coastwatchers were part of the Allied Intelligence Bureau of the G-2 Section of GHQ. Those in the Solomons reported their observations directly to South Pacific agencies. (See Comdr. Eric A. Feldt, RAN, The Coastwatchers (Melbourne and New York: Oxford University Press, 1946); MIS GHQ FEC, The Intelligence Series, IV, Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, GHQ, SWPA. The Royal New Zealand Navy also operated a coastwatching system east of the Solomons.) These intrepid men were greatly aided in their work by the devotion and help of the natives. The Melanesians in general remained loyal to the Allied cause, and throughout the war rescued shot-down airmen and stranded sailors, worked as guides, bearers, and laborers, and a select few stayed with the various coastwatchers. As the interior of the New GurneaBismarcks-Solomons area was little known and practically unmapped, the coastwatchers proved an invaluable source of information on terrain. In addition, their hideouts served as bases for the patrols that thrust behind the Japanese lines in advance of nearly every Allied operation. More Elkton III: The Plan for Cartwheel The Southwest Pacific Area A Plan of Maneuver Large Map (slow: 95K) Jumbo Map (monstrously slow: 609K) Back to Table of Contents -- Operation Cartwheel Back to World War Two: US Army List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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