The battle for the islands

THEY would get there by two routes: advancing north along the coast of New Guinea and, at the same time, island-hopping through the Solomons, a bitter campaign that culminated in the capture of New Georgia and part of Bougainville in October and November 1943 respectively.

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The 1st Marine Division landed at Cape Gloucester, on the western tip of New Britain, on Boxing Day 1943. The landings were unopposed, apart from long-range machine-gun fire, and the Marines soon occupied their main objective, Cape Gloucester airfield.

But as they ventured inland, they faced a hot and humid rainforest where some trees rose 200 feet and vines were as thick as a man’s arm and heavily defended Japanese positions on a series of ridges, laced with “an elaborate network of camouflaged bunkers and machine gun emplacements”.

By April, half the island had been conquered and the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul was effectively neutralised. The decision had been taken to bypass it, and leave its 70,000-strong garrison to wither.

Elsewhere, Admiral Chester Nimitz’s naval forces had advanced across the central Pacific, capturing the Gilbert and Marshall Islands including Tarawa, Kwajalein and Eniwetok in a campaign from August 1943 to February 1944.

The key targets for that summer were the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Guam and Tinian to provide airfields from which the revolutionary new B-29 Superfortress bomber developed at a cost of $3billion, and capable of flying 1,600 miles at high altitude, out of the reach of enemy fighters could strike at Japanese cities and industry. The amphibious landings began at Saipan in June 1944 and, after a ferocious struggle, all three islands were secured by August.