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By Root 1205 0

One of their problems was to find and take islands or localities where the terrain was suitable for heavy-bomber bases. Late in May they landed on the island of Biak, in the Schouten Islands, a group north of western New Guinea. The Japanese had an airfield here, as well as a garrison of 10,000 troops, which they managed to reinforce by another thousand during the fighting. The U. S. 41st Infantry Division made its landing against determined opposition, and while American fleet units isolated the island, the infantrymen fought it out. A second American division was landed, and slowly the Japanese were worn down. It took four weeks to make Biak secure, and isolated resistance lasted yet another month. The Americans suffered 2,800 casualties, including nearly 500 killed, while the Japanese lost more than 6,000 killed, and only about 500 captured.

From Biak the Americans went on to Sansapor on the western end of New Guinea. The Japanese had also garrisoned and fortified the large island of Halmahera as a communications link to the west of New Guinea. This too the Americans bypassed, landing on Morotai to the north of it in September. With the taking of Morotai, New Guinea was isolated and left over to mopping up. The two-year battle along the coast was essentially over, and the Japanese had everywhere met defeat. Superior American techniques, equipment, and strategy had won the day, and the lengthy campaign, an exhausting ordeal in which climate, terrain, and disease were almost as vicious as the enemy, reached a triumphant conclusion. Even without his great coup at Inchon in the Korean War the New Guinea campaign marked MacArthur as one of the great captains of military history, and it is regrettable that it is not better known. MacArthur’s forces were now ready for the northern swing.

In the central Pacific theater Nimitz’ sailors and Marines had digested the painful lessons of Tarawa. Communications, fire-control, and air support techniques were all refined and perfected, and the navy moved on with its task of isolating Truk. The first jump after Tarawa was into the central Marshall Islands, to the beautiful Kwajalein Lagoon.

The navy had now developed a new weapons combination, the fast carrier task force. Gone were the days when a patched-up battleship rescued from the mud of Pearl Harbor, one weak aircraft carrier, and a couple of battered cruisers represented the U. S. Navy’s striking force. Now as a preliminary to the assault on Kwajalein, Admiral Mark Mitscher swept through the island group with Task Force 58: twelve carriers, six new fast battleships, a dozen cruisers, and even more destroyers. Divided into four groups around the carriers, the Americans struck at will, looking for trouble, pounding the islands and their airstrips, daring the Japanese fleet to come out. A thousand miles west, Admiral Koga’s Combined Fleet, for the moment without any operating aircraft carriers, sat and waited for its opportunity.

After three days of heavy bombardment the soldiers and Marines went ashore, the former on Kwajalein itself, the latter on smaller islands around the lagoon. The Japanese fought as fiercely as they had on Tarawa, but the improved techniques employed by the Americans made a significant difference to the casualty ratios. Out of 8,000 Japanese, 130 survived; the Americans landed 41,000 troops, of whom fewer than 400 were killed and about a thousand wounded. The atoll was secured in a week.

Two weeks later the Americans leaped 400 miles to the western Marshalls and landed on Eniwetok, another tropic lagoon. Again the Japanese fought to the death, losing their entire 2,200-man garrison for American losses of about four hundred. While the amphibious forces fought their way across Eniwetok, Mitscher staged a raid on Truk. Warned of the approach of the American carriers, the Combined Fleet scooted out to the west and safety, but the Americans found fifty merchant ships and more than 350 planes at Truk. With little loss to themselves they sank thousands of tons of shipping and wiped out 275 aircraft. Truk Lagoon