Operation Cartwheel

Crossing the Straits

The Japanese

by James Miller, jr.

When the Allies landed on Cape Gloucester General Imamura could not have been surprised. He had anticipated such a move some time before. In October the 8th Area Army staff had concluded that two lines of action were open to the Allies: capture of the New Britain side of the straits, invasion of Bougainville, and a direct assault upon Rabaul in February or March 1944; or the slower process of isolating Rabaul by seizing the Admiralties and Kavieng. (This subsection is based on 8th Area Army Operations, Japaricse Monogr No. 110 (OCMH), pp. 85-119; Southeast Area Air Operations, 194244, Japanese Xlonogr NO. 38 (OCMH), pp. 25-29; Southeast Area Naval Operations, III, Japanese Monogr No- 50 (OCMH), PP- 36-39; 17th Division Operations in Western New Britain, Japanese Monogr No. 111 (OCMH), pp. 1-7.)

Considering the first course the more likely, he decided to send more troops to western New Britain in addition to those he had sent under General Matsuda in September. He would have liked to reinforce the Admiralties and Kavieng but felt he could not spare any more troops from the defenses of Rabaul.

Imamura therefore ordered the 17th Division, less the battalions dispatched to Bougainville, to western New Britain. Reaching Rabaul from China between 4 October and 12 November, the 17th went by echelons to its new posts by naval vessel and small boat. The movement began in October but was still under way in mid-December.

The 17th Division commander was given operational control of the units already there, chiefly General Matsuda's 65th Brigade and 4th Shipping Group at Cape Gloucester and 2d Battalion, 228th Infantry, and two naval guard companies at Gasmata. (The 65th Brigade had played an important part in the fighting on Luzon in the first Philippines campaign. See Morton, The Fall of the Philippines.)

Final plans organized the entire force into three commands. The first and largest, under Matsuda, consisted of the 65th Brigade (principally the 141st Infantry), the 4th Shipping Group, and a large number of field artillery, antiaircraft, automatic weapons, engineer, and communications units. Matsuda was charged with defense of the area from the emergency airstrip and barge staging point near Tuluvu around the coast to Cape Busching on the south. Under Matsuda Maj. Masamitsu Komori, with most of the 1st Battalion, 81st Infantry, one company of the 54th Infantry, and engineers plus detachments, was assigned responsibility for defense of Arawe. Col. Shuhei Hirashima, commanding the 54th Infantry, less the 2d Battalion, the 2d Battalion, 228th Infantry, the 2d Battalion, 23d Field Artillery Regiment, and the naval guard companies, was to hold the air- field at Gasmata. (A false report from natives in October that the Allies had landed east of Gasmata had caused the dispatch of the naval companies to Gasmata.)

The 17th Division established its command post at Gavuvu, east of the Willaumez Peninsula and a long distance from the scene of operations.

The air strength available to the Japanese for the forthcoming fight had been reduced, not only by the Allied air attacks against Rabaul, but also by orders from Tokyo. The 2d Area Army was established in the Netherlands Indies on 1 December 1943, and the boundary between it and Imaniura's 18th Area Army was set at longitude 140 degrees east. But the 7th Air Division was transferred out of the 4th Air Army and assigned to the 2d Area Army. (Smith, The Approach to the Philippines, Ch. IV.)

This transfer seriously reduced Imamura's forces, but so far the 7th Air Division had not operated effectively. Its most outstanding exploit had been the loss of planes on the ground at Wewak.

More Crossing the Straits

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