Arundel About the time that Vella Lavella was being secured, General Griswold's forces on New Georgia were carrying out their part of Admiral Halsey's plan by seizing Arundel and by shelling Kolombangara. to seal it off. The attack on Arundel, which is separated from the west coast of New Georgia by Hathorn Sound and Diamond Narrows, proved again that it was all too easy to underestimate the Japanese capacity for resolute defense. The 172d Infantry invaded it on 27 August, but the Japanese fought so fiercely that the 27th Infantry, two battalions of the 169th Infantry, one company of the 103d Infantry, B Company of the 82d Chemical Battalion (4.2-inch mortars, in their South Pacific debut), the 43d Reconnaissance Troop, and six Marine tanks had to be committed to keep the offensive going Resistance proved more intense than expected in part because the indefatigable Sasaki had not yet abandoned his hope of launching an offensive that would recapture Munda. On 8 September he sent the 3d Battalion, 13th Infantry, from Kolombangara to strengthen his forces on Arundel, and five days later, when Allied air and naval forces had practically cut the supply lines between Bougainville and Kolombangara and his troops faced starvation, he decided to attack Munda or Balroko via Arundel and seize the Americans' food. He therefore dispatched Colonel Tomonari (who was slain in the ensuing fight) and the rest of the 13th Infantry to Arundel on 14 September. Thus the battle for Arundel lasted until 21 September, and ended then, with the Americans in control, only because Sasaki ordered all his Arundel troops to withdraw to Kolombangara. The Japanese Evacuation Sasaki had ordered the evacuation of Arundel because Imperial General Headquarters had decided to abandon the New Georgia Islands completely. While the Americans were seizing Munda airfield, the Japanese naval authorities in the Southeast Area realized that their hold on the central Solomons was tenuous. But they resolved to maintain the line of communications to Kolombangara, so that Sasaki's troops could hold out as long as possible. If Sasaki could not hold out, the next best thing would be a slow, fighting withdrawal to buy time to build up defenses for a final stand on Bougainville. Imperial Squabbling Such events in early August as the fall of Munda and the Japanese defeat in Vella Gulf on 6-7 August precipitated another argument between Japanese Army and Navy officers over the relative strategic merits of New Guinea and the Solomons. This argument was resolved in Tokyo by the Imperial General Headquarters which decided to give equal priority to both areas. Tokyo sent orders to Rabaul on 13 August directing that the central Solomons hold out while Bougainville was strengthened, and that the central Solomons were to be abandoned in late September and early October. The decision to abandon New Georgia was not made known at once to General Sasaki. Sasaki, with about twelve thousand men concentrated on Kolombangara, prepared elaborate defenses along the southern beaches and, as shown above, prepared plans for counterattacks. Finally on 15 September, after Sasaki had sent the 13th Infantry to Arundel an 8th Fleet staff officer passed the wQ to get his troops out. Southeastern Fleet, 8th Fleet, and Sasaki's headquarters prepared the plans for the evacuation. A total of 12,435 men were to be moved. Eighteen torpedo boats, thirty-eight large landing craft, and seventy or eighty Army barges (daihatsus) were to be used. (17th Army Operations, II, Japanese Monogr No. 40 (OCMH), 54, says 138 "large motor boats" were to be used; Southeast Area Naval Operations, II, Japanese Monogr No. 49 (OCMH), 52, lists 18 torpedo boats, 38 large landing barges, and about 70 Army craft.) Destroyers were to screen the movement, aircraft would cover it, and cruisers at Rabaul would stand by in support. The decision to use the daihatsus was logical, considering the destroyer losses in Vella Gulf and the success the nocturnal daihatsus had enjoyed. American PT boat squadrons, four in all, had been operating nightly against the enemy barges in New Georgian waters since late July, and had sunk several, but only a small percentage of the total. Destroyers and planes had also operated against them without complete success. The Japanese put heavier armor and weapons on their barges for defense against torpedo boats, which in turn replaced their torpedoes-useless against the shallowdraft barges-with .37-mm. antitank and 40-mm. antiaircraft guns. The barges were too evasive to be suitable targets for the destroyers' 5-inch guns. Planes of all types, even heavy bombers, hunted them at sea, but the barges hid out in the daytime in carefully selected staging points. Those traveling by day covered themselves with palm trees and foliage so that from the air they resembled islets. Sasaki ordered his troops off Gizo and Arundel; those on Arundel completed movement to Kolombangara by 21 September. The seaplane base at Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel and the outpost on Ganongga Island were also abandoned at this time. The evacuation of Kolombangara was carried out on the nights of 28-29 September, 1-2 October, and 2-3 October. Admiral Wilkinson had anticipated that the enemy might try to escape during this period, the dark of the moon. Starting 22 September American cruisers and destroyers made nightly reconnaissance of the Slot north of Vella Lavella, but when Japanese submarines became active the cruisers were withdrawn. The destroyers attempted to break up the evacuation but failed because enemy planes and destroyers interfered. The Japanese managed to get some 9,400 men, or some 3,6oo less than they had evacuated from Guadalcanal in February, safely off the island. Most of them were sent to southern Bougainville. Twentynine landing craft and torpedo boats were sunk, one destroyer was damaged, and sixty-six men were killed. (Southeast Area Naval Operations, II, Japanese Monogr No. 49 (OCMH), 54-55. At the time the Americans greatly overestimated their success against barges. See for example Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey's Story, p. 172. ) Naval Battle The final action in the New Georgia area was the Battle of Vella Lavella on the night of 6-7 October, when ten Japanese destroyers and twelve destroyer-transports and smaller craft came down to Vella Lavella to rescue the six hundred stranded men there. Facing odds of three to one, American destroyers engaged the Japanese warships northwest of Vella Lavella. One Japanese destroyer was sunk; one American destroyer was badly damaged and sank, and two more suffered damage. During the engagement the transports slipped in to Marquana Bay on northwest Vella Lavella and got the troops out safely. (See Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, PP. 243-52, for a more complete account.) The last organized bodies of Japanese had left the New Georgia area. When the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, landed at Ringi Cove on southern Kolombangara on the morning of 6 October, it found only forty-nine abandoned artillery pieces and some scattered Japanese who had been left behind. (ACofS G-2 XIV Corps to CG XIV Corps, 29 Oct 43, sub: Photo Int Rpt, Kolombangara, with incls, Exhibit 6, List of Guns Abandoned by Enemy in the Vila Area.) The long campaign--more than four months had elapsed since the Marines landed at Segi Point--was over. Conclusion New Georgia had been lengthy and costly. Planned as a one-division affair, it had used up elements of four divisions. It would be months before the 25th and 43d Divisions were ready to fight again. American casualties totaled 1,094 dead, 3,873 wounded. (Table 2) TABLE 2: AMERICAN CASUALTIES ON NEW GEORGIA Type 25th Division 37th Division 43d Division Others Total Killed in action and died of wounds 141 220 538 196 1,094 Wounded 550 887 1944 494 3,873 Missing 1 5 17 - 23 Accidental death 2 2 - - 4 Source: NGOF, Narrative Account of the Campaigns in the New Georgia Group, p. 29. These figures do not tell the complete story, for they count only men killed or wounded by enemy fire. They do not include casualties resulting from disease or from combat fatigue or war neuroses. For example the 172d Infantry reported 1,550 men wounded or sick; the 16oth Infantry, up to 5 August, suffered 958 nonbattle casualties. The 103d Infantry had 364 "shelled-shocked" and 83 nonbattle casualties. (172d Inf Rpt of Opus, New Georgia; 169th Inf Jnl, 5 Aug 43; 103d Inf Rpt of Opus, New Georgia.) Japanese casualties are not known, but XIV Corps headquarters reported a count of enemy dead, exclusive of Vella Lavella, of 2,483. The Allied soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors who suffered death, wounds, or illness, and those who fought in the campaign without injury, had served their cause well. New Georgia was a success. The bypassing of Kolombangara, though overshadowed by later bypasses and clouded by the fact that the bypassed troops escaped, was a satisfactory demonstration of the technique; the seizure of Vella Lavella provided Halsey's forces with a good airfield for a much lower price in blood than an assault on Kolombangara. The Allies swiftly built another airfield at Ondonga Peninsula on New Georgia. This gave them four--Munda, Barakoma, Ondonga, and Segi. The first three, the most used, brought all Bougainville within range of Allied fighters. When South Pacific forces invaded the island, they could pick an undefended place and frustrate the Japanese efforts to build up Bougainville's defenses and delay the Allies in New Georgia. The New Georgia operation is also significant as a truly joint operation, and it clearly illustrates the interdependence of air, sea, and ground forces in oceanic warfare. Victory was made possible only by the close co-ordination of air, sea, and ground operations. Air and sea forces fought hard and finally successfully to cut the enemy lines of communication while the ground troops clawed their way forward to seize objectives intended for use by the air and sea forces in the next advance. Unity of command, established from the very start, was continued throughout with obvious wholeheartedness by all responsible commanders. No account of the operation should be brought to a close without praising the skill, tenacity, and valor of the heavily outnumbered Japanese who stood off nearly four Allied divisions in the course of the action, and then successfully evacuated 9,400 men to fight again. The obstinate General Sasaki, who disappears from these pages at this point, deserved his country's gratitude for his gallant and able conduct of the defense. 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