Operation Cartwheel

Bougainville

Preliminary Landings

by James Miller, jr.

The Treasuries

The assault echelon of Admiral Fort's southern force consisted of five transport groups: the advance transport group with 8 APD's and 3 escorting destroyers; the second with 8 LCI(L)'s, 2 LCI(G)'s, (The LCI (G) was a gunboat designed to give close fire support in landings. Two 20mm, three 40-mm., and five .50-caliber machine guns were installed on an LCI (L).) and 6 destroyers; the third with 2 LST , S, 2 destroyers, and 2 minesweepers; the fourth with 1 APC, 3 LCT's, and 2 PT boats; the fifth with I APC, 6 LCM's, and a rescue boat. (This section is based on Gillespie, The Pacific, Pp. 142-59; Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, pp. 293-96; Rentz, Bougainville and the Northern Solomons, pp. 92-114; ONI USN, Combat Narratives: Solomon Islands Campaign, XII, The Bougainville Landing and the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, 27 October-2 November 1943 [Washington, 19451, 11-23; SOPACBACOM, The Bougainville Campaign, Ch. II, OCMH; 8th Area Army Operations, Japanese Monogr No. 110 (OCMH), p. 102; 17th Army Operations, II, Japanese Monogr NO. 40 (OCMH), 100-103; Outline of Southeast Area Naval Air Operations, Pt. IV, Japanese Monogr No. 108 (OCMH), P. 44.)

These ships loaded troops and supplies at Guadalcanal, Rendova, and Vella Lavella and departed for the Treasuries on 26 October. Their departures were timed for the five groups to arrive in Blanche Harbor, which is between Mono and Stirling Islands, between 0520 and 0830, 27 October. (In Samuel Eliot Morison's words, "The historian wishes that the exploring captains of H.M.S. Blanche, Renard, and Gazelle had not been so fond of their ships as to name several harbors, channels, and sounds after each one." Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, P. 293, n. 1.)

All possible measures were taken to avoid detection, because the small forces had to get established in the Treasuries before the Japanese were able to send in reinforcements from their ample reserves in the nearby Shortlands. But detection was almost inevitable in an operation so close to enemy bases, and at 0420, 27 October, a reconnaissance seaplane sighted the ships near the Treasuries and reported their presence. Admiral Merrill's task force, covering the operation some distance westward, was also discovered.

Heavy rain fell as the leading APD's arrived off the western entrance to Blanche Harbor. Low-hanging clouds obscured the jungled hills of Mono Island. As Blanche Harbor was too narrow to permit ships to maneuver safely, the fire support destroyers and seven APD's remained west of the harbor. While the troops boarded the landing craft, destroyers opened fire on the landing beaches on Mono's south shore, and the minesweepers checked Blanche Harbor. At the same time the APD McKean put a radar party ashore on Mono's north coast.

Covered by the destroyers' gunfire and accompanied by the LCI gunboats, the first wave of LCP(R)'s, carrying elements of two battalions of the 8th Brigade, moved through the channel in the wet, misty half-light. There were only a handful of Japanese on Mono, some 225 men of the special naval landing forces. The naval bombardment drove most of the defenders out of their beach positions, and as the New Zealand infantry went ashore they drove out or killed the Japanese in the vicinity of the beach.

However, enemy mortars and machine guns from hidden positions in the jungle fired on the landing beaches and on the LST's of the fourth transport group, which beached at 0735. This fire caused some casualties, damaged some weapons and equipment, and delayed the unloading. But before noon the 8th Brigade troops captured two 75-mmguns and one go-min. mortar and resistance to the landing ceased.

Stirling Island, which was not occupied by the enemy, was secured by a battalion during the morning. A total of 2,500 men--252 Americans of the 198th Coast Artillery and several detachments from other units, the rest New Zealanders--had been landed on the south shore of Mono. The radar detachment and accompanying combat troops that had landed on the north coast of Mono numbered 200.

Meanwhile the American destroyers were busy. In addition to providing fire support for the landings they escorted the unloaded transport groups back to Guadalcanal. Two picket destroyers with fighter director teams aboard were stationed east and west of the Treasuries to warn against enemy air attacks.

General Hyakutake had decided that the Treasury landings were a preliminary to a systematic operation, and that the Allies would build an airfield on the Treasuries, take Choiseul, and after intensified air and surface operations, would land three divisions on southern Bougainville in late November. He felt that they might possibly invade Buka. Warning that the recent decline in Japanese naval strength might cause the Allies to move faster, he stressed the importance of building up the south Bougainville defenses. In short, he believed just what the Allies hoped he would.

When Admiral Kusaka at Rabaul was notified of the Allied landing, he brought some planes forward from Kavieng and sent fighters and dive bombers against the Allies. Most of these were headed off by the New Georgia- based P-38's and P-40's that formed the southern force's air cover, but some got through to damage the picket destroyer Cony and harass the retiring LST's. The Japanese pilots reported that they had stink two transports and two cruisers.

On shore, Brigadier R. A. Row of the New Zealand Army, the landing force commander, set up beach defenses. By 12 November his troops had killed or captured the enemy garrison which had fled into the hills of Mono. Two hundred and five Japanese corpses were counted; 40 New Zealanders and 12 Americans had been killed, 145 New Zealanders and 29 Americans wounded.

Succeeding transport echelons, thirteen in all, brought in more troops and equipment from 1 November 1943 through 15 January 1944. During this period the boat pool, an advanced naval base, and radars were established; these supported the main operation at Empress Augusta Bay. Seabees of the U.S. Navy built a 5,600-foot-long airstrip on Stirling that was ready to receive fighter planes on Christmas Day.

The Choiseul Raid

Four of the APD's that had carried Brigadier Row's troops to the Treasuries sailed to Vella Lavella on 27 October and there took aboard 725 men of Lt. Col. Victor H. Krulak'S 2d Marine Parachute Battalion, plus fourteen days' rations and two units of fire. Escorted by the destroyer Conway, the APD's steamed for the village of Voza on Choiseul, and that night landed the parachutikts and their gear.

General Vandegrift had ordered Krulak so to conduct operations that the Japanese would believe a large force was present. Krulak therefore raided a barge staging point at Sagigai, some eight miles from Voza, and then sent strong combat patrols to the western part of Choiseul. But by 2 November the Japanese appeared to be concentrating at Sagigal with the obvious intention of destroying the 2d Parachute Battalion. From eight hundred to one thousand enemy were reported to have moved into Sagigai from positions farther east, with more on the way. By now the Empress Augusta Bay landing had been safely executed, and Vandegrift ordered Krulak to withdraw. The battalion embarked on three LCI's in the early morning hours Of 4 November. The raid cost 11 Marines dead, 14 wounded; 143 Japanese were estimated to have been slain.

Japanese sources do not indicate what estimates Imamura and Hyakutake placed on the operation. However, since Hyakutake expected that Choiseul would be invaded after the Treasuries and before southern Bougainville, it is not unlikely that Krulak's diversion confirmed his belief that southern Bougainville was the main Allied objective.

More Invasion of Bougainville

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