During the next few days LCT's from Cape Cretin and APD's from Goodenough brought in heavy weapons, supplies, and more troops. There was no ground contact with the Japanese at Arawe, but in the air the enemy reacted with violence. Between 15 and 27 December naval planes delivered seven attacks against Arawe and against the 1st Marine Division at Cape Gloucester, and in about the same period the 6th Air Division attacked four times. LCT's at Arawe on 16 December suffered almost continuous air attack. Resupply convoys lost one coastal transport sunk and another damaged, plus one minesweeper and six LST's damaged. Although General Cunningham's force had no 90-mm. antiaircraft guns to keep bombing planes away, damage ashore was fortunately light. Cunningham expressed his urgent need for the 90-mm.'s, but none was available for Arawe. By late December, however, the 11th Air Fleet and the 6th Air Division had lost so many planes to Allied fighters over New Britain, to Southwest Pacific attacks against Wewak, and to the South Pacific's raids on Rabaul that they were forced to stop daylight bombardment and confine their activities to the defense of Rabaul and Wewak. When Imamura asked Tokyo for more planes Imperial Headquarters responded by sending the 8th Air Brigade to Hollandia under the 2d Area Army. The Japanese had not yet given up at Arawe. When the 17th Division commander received word of Cunningham's landing he ordered Major Komori, who was then proceeding by boat and overland march to Arawe from Rabaul, to make haste. He also ordered the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, to move from Cape Busching to Arawe and come under Komori's command. Komori was then to destroy the DIRECTOR Task Force. The Americans soon became aware of the approaching Japanese. On 18 December two Japanese armed barges attacked a 112th Cavalry patrol on board two of the 2d Engineer Special Brigade's LCVP's (which had remained under Cunningham at Arawe). The Japanese scored hits; the patrol abandoned the LCVP's and made its way cast to Arawe on foot. Komori's force reached the Pulie River east of Arawe on 20 December, advanced west, and on Christmas Day forced the 112th to abandon its observation posts and outposts east of Arawe. Cunningham, correctly concluding that the Japanese were converging against him from two directions but erroneously concluding that Komori's command was but the advance guard of a stronger force from Gasmata, asked Krueger for reinforcements. The ALAMO commander hastily dispatched G Company, 158th Infantry, by PT boat. Komori, with the 1st Battalion, 8,rst Infantry, reached the area northwest of the main line of resistance on 26 December. Like the Americans, he had difficulty in getting any exact information on positions in the featureless, jungled terrain at the peninsula's base. Several of his night probing attacks were repulsed by mortar fire, as were daytime attacks on 28 and 29 December. The second of these took the lives of most of his men, but the 1st Battalion, First Infantry, arrived in the late afternoon Of 29 December. Digging In Several small attacks in early January 1944 by the 112th were beaten off, but the cavalrymen established the fact that the Japanese were digging in about six hundred yards beyond their own perimeter. Komori had resolved to defend the prewar airstrip on the mainland east of the peninsula, which in any case the Allies did not want. (For an amusing incident about this airstrip and the embarrassment caused by overenthusiasm on the part of public information officers, see Hough and Crown, The Campaign on New Britain, pp. 144-49) On 6 January Cunningham reported to Krueger the existence of the Japanese positions. Cunningham's forces now totaled almost 4,750 men and had a short front line--seven hundred yards--was a strong position with fields of fire cut, barbed wire emplaced, and artillery and mortar data computed. (By 10 January Task Force 76 had carried 4,750 Men and 8,165 tons of supplies to Arame.) The enemy positions he faced consisted largely of shallow trenches and foxholes and were practically invisible in the dense underbrush. There were only about l00 Japanese and half-a-dozen machine guns there, but lack of visibility and the fact that the Japanese moved their guns frequently made them almost impossible for artillery and mortars to hit. An assault would be further complicated by the fact that in the area there were no clearly defined terrain features which could serve to guide an attack and help it maintain its direction. Cunningham asked for tanks and more troops, and repeated his request for 90-mm. antiaircraft guns. Krueger agreed that attacks by riflemen alone against Komori would result in a waste of lives and agreed to send tanks as well as more troops. F Company, 158th Infantry, and B Company, 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, reached Arawe from Cape Cretin on 10 and 12 January. On the morning of 16 January attack and medium bombers struck at the Japanese positions, artillery and mortars shelled them, and the Marine light tanks, two companies of the 158th Infantry, and C Troop of the 112th Cavalry attacked. The tanks led, with infantrymen and cavalrymen following each tank. Direct communication between tanks and foot troops was successfully attained by a device which the tank company improvised; it installed an EE8 field telephone at the rear of each machine. The attack went well and carried forward for fifteen hundred yards. Next day B Troop and one tank platoon mopped up remaining pockets of resistance. Thereafter Arawe was quiet. Casualties for all units in the DIRECTOR Task Force totaled 118 dead, 352 wounded, and 4 missing. Komori had actually withdrawn to defend the airstrip, and remained there until ordered to retreat to the east in February. Ironically enough, no PT base was ever built at Arawe. Actually the final plans had never included any provision for one. Lt. Coindr. Morton C. Munima, commanding Southwest Pacific PT's, successfully insisted that he did not want and did not need a PT base there to patrol the straits or to attack Japanese barges, which seldom used the south coast anyway. Arawe never became an air base either. The only airstrip ever used was one for artillery liaison planes that engineers hastily cleared on 13 January. More Crossing the Straits Plans and Preparations The Japanese Battle of Arawe Operations: 16 December 1943-10 February 1944 Battle of Cape Gloucester Battle of Saidor 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