North to Bairoko The Japanese withdrawal from Munda released a sizable body of American troops to attempt the cleanup of the Japanese between Munda and Dragons Peninsula. After the rapid advances began on 1 August the 27th Infantry, temporarily commanded by Lt. Col. George E. Bush, sent out patrols to the north before advancing to clear out the Japanese and make contact with Liversedge. (Col. Douglas Sugg had commanded the regiment until a few days before the move to New Georgia. He fell ill and was hospitalized, and his place was taken by Colonel Bush, the executive. Sugg resumed command of his regiment on 12 August.) Meanwhile General Griswold decided that mopping-up operations would have to include a drive from Bibilo Hill northwest to Zieta, a village on the west coast about four crow's- flight miles northwest of Bibilo, to cut off the retreating Japanese. On 2 August the 37th Division had reported that Fijian patrols had cut the Munda-Bairoko trail but found no evidence of any Japanese traffic. Lt. Col. Demas L. Sears, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, 37th Division, offered the opinion that if the Japanese were evacuating New Georgia they were moving along the coast to Zieta rather than to Balroko. This opinion was buttressed by reports from Colonel Griffith of the Raiders who radioed on 2 August that there had been no traffic in or out of Bairoko. MAJ. GEN. J. LAWTON COLLINS talking to Maj. Charles W. Davis, Commanding Officer, 3d Battalion, 27th Infantry (left), New Georgia, August 1943. Next day, on orders from Griswold, the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry, left Enogai on a cross-country trek toward Zieta, a trek that was halted short of there on 5 August by additional orders from Griswold. He had decided to use the two 25th Division regiments under General Collins, the commander who had led the division on Guadalcanal, to drive to Zieta and Bairoko. From then until 25 August, the 25th Division units slogged painfully along the swampy jungle trails in pursuit of the elusive enemy. The Japanese occasionally established roadblocks, ambushes, and defenses in depth to delay the Americans, but the worst enemy was the jungle. The terrain was, if anything, worse than that encountered on the Munda front. The maps were incorrect, inexact, or both. For example, Mount Tirokiamba, a 1,500-foot eminence reported to lie about 9,000 yards north west of Bibilo Hill, was found to be 4,500 yards south by west of its reported position. Mount Bao, thought to be 6,000 yards east-northeast of Bibilo Hill, was actually 2,500 yards farther on. 4-TON TRUCK STUCK IN THE MUD on a jeep trail, New Georgia. As the regiments advanced, bulldozers of the 65th Engineer Battalion attempted to build jeep trails behind them. But the rain fell regularly and the trails became morasses so deep that even the bulldozers foundered. General Collins ordered the trail building stopped in mid- August. Now supplies were carried by hand and on men's backs to the front, and when these methods failed to provide enough food and ammunition the regiments were supplied from the air. The 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, trekked north on the Munda-Bairoko trail and made contact on 9 August with Liversedge. The 2d and 3d Battalions, 27th Infantry, after some sharp fighting took Zieta on 15 August, then pushed northwest to Piru Plantation. The plantation lay about seven and one-half airline miles northwest of Bibilo Hill, but the regiment's advance on the ground required a 22-mile march. The 161st Infantry, following the 1st Battalion, 27th, moved up the trail and after midAugust began patrolling to the west short of Bairoko Harbour. On 25 August, after Griffith had reported two nights of busy enemy barge activity in and out of Bairoko Harbour, the Americans bloodlessly occupied its shores. The Japanese Evacuation But the main body of Japanese survivors had slipped out of Zieta and Bairoko. Traveling light, they had evaded the slower-moving, more heavily encumbered Americans. On 5 August General Sasaki had decided that he could defend New Georgia no longer. He therefore sent the 13th Infantry and most of the Bairoko- based special naval landing force units to Kolombangara, the 229th Infantry, the 3d Battalion, 230th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 23d Infantry, to Baanga, a long narrow island which lay across Lulu Channel from Zieta. These units, plus two 120-MM. naval guns, were ordered to defend Baanga, and the naval guns were to shell Munda airfield. Sasaki's headquarters, having moved out of Munda, was established on Baanga until 7 August, and the next day he moved to Kolombangara. Baanga The islet of Baanga, 6,500 yards long and some 4,000 yards west of Kindu Point on New Georgia, was captured to extend Allied control over Diamond Narrows and to stop the shelling of Munda by the two 120-MM. guns nicknamed "Pistol Pete" by the American troops. Seizure of Baanga was entrusted to the 43d Division, briefly commanded by General Barker after io August, when General Hodge returned to the Americal Division. (Barker was replaced several days later, on orders from the War Department, by General Wing, who was senior to him.) Patrolling started on 11 August, but the Japanese on Baanga fought back hard, and the 169th Infantry, which Barker initially assigned to Baanga, gave a "shaky performance." (See Ltr, Griswold to Harmon, 24 Aug 43, quoted in SOPACBACOM, History of the New Georgia Campaign, Vol. I, Ch. VII, P. 7, OCMH.) The 172d Infantry (less one battalion) joined in, and the southern part of the island was secured by 21 August. The 43d Division lost 52 men killed, 110 wounded, and 486 nonbattle casualties in this operation. The Japanese, meanwhile, had decided to get off Baanga. General Sasaki had evolved a plan to use the 13th Infantry, then on Kolombangara, to attack New Georgia, and dispatched his naval liaison officer to 8th Fleet headquarters to arrange for air and fleet support. But he was to get none. Moreover, no more ground reinforcements were to be sent to New Georgia. The last attempted shipment consisted of two mixed battalions from the 6th and 38th Divisions, to be carried to Kolombangara on destroyers. (Each battalion consisted of four rifle companies, a machine gun platoon, and a small artillery unit.) But Comdr. Frederick Moosbrugger with six destroyers surprised the Japanese force in Vella Gulf on the night of 6-7 August and quickly sank three Japanese destroyers. The fourth enemy ship, which carried no troops, escaped. Moosbrugger's force got off virtually scot free, while the Japanese lost over fifteen hundred soldiers and sailors as well as the ships. About three hundred survivors reached Vella Lavella. (For a complete account see Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, pp. 212-22.) When Sasaki's request reached the 8th Fleet, Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa, basing his decision on instructions from Imperial General Headquarters, ordered Sasaki to cancel his plan for attacking New Georgia and to concentrate the Baanga troops on Arundel to forestall further Allied advances. So the Japanese left on barges for Arundel, completing the movement by 22 August. Vella Lavella: The Bypass Meanwhile an Allied force had made a landing at Barakoma on Vella Lavella, which lay about thirty-five nautical miles northwest of Munda. This landing represented a major and completely successful departure from the original TOENAILS plan. The plan had called for the attack against Munda to be followed by the seizure of Vila airfield on Kolombangara, but the Japanese were now correctly believed to be established on Kolombangara in considerable strength. Some estimates placed the enemy garrison at ten thousand, a little under the actual total. And Admiral Halsey did not want a repetition of the Munda campaign. As he later put it, "The undue length of the Munda operation and our heavy casualties made me wary of another slugging match, but I didn't know how to avoid it." (Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey's Story, p. 170.) There was a way to avoid a slugging match, and that way was to bypass Kolombangara completely and land instead on Vella Lavella. The advantages were obvious: the airfield at Vila was poorly drained and thus no good while Vella Lavella looked more promising. Also, Vella Lavella was correctly reported to contain few Japanese. Vella Lavella, northwesternmost island in the New Georgia group, lay less than a hundred miles from the Japanese bases in the Shortlands and southern Bougainville, but a landing there could be protected by American fighter planes based at Munda and Segi Point. The technique of bypassing, which General MacArthur has characterized as "as old as warfare itself," was well understood in the U.S. Army and Navy long before Vella Lavella, but successful bypassing requires a preponderance of strength that Allied forces had not hitherto possessed. (Ltr, MacArthur to Smith, Chief of Mil Hist, 5 Mar 53, no sub, OCMH. In ground operations field orders usually specify that isolated pockets of resistance are to be bypassed, contained, and reduced later, so that the advance will not be held up.) The first instance of an amphibious bypass in the Pacific occurred in May 1943 when the Allied capture of Attu caused the Japanese to evacuate Kiska. When members of Halsey's staff proposed that South Pacific forces bypass Kolombangara and jump to Vella LaVella of the more euphonious name, the admiral was enthusiastic. (Ltrs, Adm Halsey to Maj Gen Orlando Ward, Chief of Mil Hist, 27 May and 27 Aug 52, no subs, OCMH. The second letter contains as inclosures letters from Admiral Robert B. Carney, formerly Chief of Staff, South Pacific Area, and Lt. Gen. William E. Riley, USMC (Ret.), formerly Halsey's war plans officer, to Admiral Halsey. Other former staff officers credit Wilkinson and Comdr. William F. Riggs, Jr., with the idea. See Ltr, Vice Adin D. B. Duncan to Gen Smith, Chief of Mil Hist, 10 Nov 53, no sub, OCMH.) On 11 July he radioed the proposal to Admirals Turner and Fitch. "Our natural route of approach from Munda to Bougainville," he asserted, "lies south of Gizo and Vella Lavella Islands." He asked them to consider whether it would be practicable to emplace artillery in the Munda, Enogai and Arundel areas to interdict Vila; cut the supply lines to Vila by artillery and surface craft, particularly PT boats; "by-pass Vila area and allow it to die on the vine"; and seize Vella Lavella and build a fighter field there. The decision on this plan would depen on the possibility of building a fighter field on Vella Lavella to give close fighter support for the invasion of Bougainville. (Rad, COMSOPAC to CTF 31 and COMAIRSOPAC, 11 Jul 43, in GHQ SWPA G-3 Jul, 12 Jul 43) Both Turner and Fitch liked the idea. Reconnaissance Reconnaissance was necessary first. Allied knowledge of Vella Lavella was limited. Coastwatchers, plantation managers, and such members of the clergy as the Rev. A. W. E. Silvester, the New Zealand Methodist missionary bishop whose see included New Georgia and Vella Lavella, provided some information but not enough to form the basis for the selection of an airfield site or an invasion beach. Col. Frank L. Beadle, Harmon's engineer, therefore took command of a reconnaissance party consisting of six Army, Navy, and Marine officers. Beadle was ordered to concentrate his reconnaissance in the coastal plain region of Barakoma and Biloa Mission on the southeast tip of Vella Lavella because it was closest to Munda, the natives were friendly, coastwatcher Lt. Henry josselyn of the Australian Navy and Bishop Silvester were there, and the terrain seemed favorable. The Japanese had already surveyed the Barakoma area for a fighter strip. Beadle's party boarded a torpedo boat at Rendova on the night of 21-22 July and slipped through the darkness to land at Barakoma. Silvester, Josselyn, and two natives were on hand to meet the American officers. For six days Beadle's party, the bishop, the coastwatcher, and several natives explored the southeast part of the island, and ventured up the west coast to Nyanga Plantation, about twelve crow's-flight miles northwest of Barakoma. Returning to Rendova on 28 July, Beadle reported that the vicinity of Barakoma met all requirements, and that there were no Japanese on the southeast coast of the island. Beadle recommended that the landing be made on beaches extending some 750 yards south from the mouth of the Barakoma River, and suggested that an advance detachment be sent to Barakoma to mark beaches. These recommendations were accepted. Admiral Wilkinson, Turner's successor, chose an advance party of fourteen officers and enlisted men from the various units in the Vella Lavella invasion force and placed it under Capt. G. C. Kriner, USN, who was to command the Vella Lavella naval base. This group proceeded from Guadalcanal to Rendova, then prepared to change to PT boats for the run through the night of 12-13 August toward Barakoma. The work of the advance party was of a highly secret nature. If the Japanese became aware of its presence, they could kill or capture the men and certainly would deduce that an Allied invasion was imminent. On 11 August coastwatcher Josselyn radioed Guadalcanal to report the presence of forty Japanese. (Japanese survivors of the Battle of Vella Gulf, 6-7 August, had landed on Vella Lavella.) His message indicated that pro-Allied natives had taken them prisoner. From Koli Point General Harmon radioed General Griswold to ask for more men to accompany the advance party and take the prisoners into custody. Accordingly one officer and twenty-five enlisted men from E and G Companies, 103d Infantry, were detailed to go along. The whole party left Rendova at 1730 on 12 August. En route Japanese planes bombed and strafed the four torpedo boats for two hours. One was hit and four men were wounded but the other three made it safely. During the hours of darkness they hove to off Barakoma. Rubber boats had been provided to get the party from the torpedo boats to shore, but no one was able to inflate the rubber boats from the carbon dioxide containers that were provided. So natives paddled out in canoes and took the Americans ashore. Meanwhile Josselyn had radioed Wilkinson again to the effect that there were 140 Japanese in the area; 40 at Biloa and 100 about five miles north of Barakoma. They were, he declared, under surveillance but were not prisoners. Once ashore Captain Kriner discovered there were many starving, ragged, poorly armed stragglers but no prisoners. He requested reinforcements, and in the early morning hours of 14 August seventy-two officers and enlisted men of F Company, 103d Infantry, sailed for Barakoma in four torpedo boats. This time the rubber boats inflated properly and the men paddled ashore from three hundred yards off the beach. The advance party with the secret mission of marking beaches and the combat party with the prisoner-catching mission set about their respective jobs. Beach marking proceeded in a satisfactory manner although the infantrymen in that party were not completely happy about the presence of the 103d troops. They felt that the two missions were mutually exclusive and that the prisoner-catching mission destroyed all hope of secrecy. Only seven Japanese were captured. (SOPACBACOM's History of the New Georgia Campaign, Vol. L Ch. VIII, pp. 20-21, OCMH, contains some fanciful data concerning the sinking of one PT boat and the killing of about fifty Japanese.) F Company, 103d, held the beachhead at Barakoma against the arrival of the main invasion force. More After Munda The Airfield Cleaning Up Plans Seizure of Barakoma Final Operations Jumbo Map: The Clean-Up (very slow: 264K) 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. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com