Small Boats and Brave Men: The 9th Division and the use of the Littoral in the Huon Peninsula Campaign September 1943–January 1944

Introduction

At 0630 on the morning of 17 November 1943, a tremendous screeching sound cut through the air of the slopes of Sattelberg, a peak that reached some 900 metres above sea level and dominated the southern coast of the Huon Peninsula, on the north coast of New Guinea. The sounds were produced by a salvo of 4.5 inch rockets fired from a makeshift mount on a ¾ ton weapons carrier; another salvo was quickly fired, and then another.[1] It was unclear how much damage the rockets did to the Japanese positions guarding the settlement of Sattelberg, and in some ways irrelevant; their primary purpose was to mask the sound of a troop of Matilda tanks moving into position further ahead. As the Matildas crossed their start line at 0700, the sound of the rockets was replaced by the thunder of guns. Hundreds of rounds fired by the 25-pounders of 2/12 Field Regiment fell ahead of the tanks and the infantry of 2/48th Battalion; so too did thousands of rounds fired by Vickers machine guns of the 2/2nd MG battalion.[2] ‘H-Hour, 0700 hours on 17 November opened a new chapter in combined arms fighting for the Australian Amy in New Guinea,’ Garth Pratten has argued. ‘While all of these elements had been employed in New Guinea previously, this was the first occasion on which they had been so closely integrated and also in sufficient strength to produce a decisive combined effect.’[3]

This paper seeks to build on Pratten’s argument by demonstrating how, during the second half of the Huon Peninsula campaign, the 9th Division was able to generate superior combat power to its enemy and execute combined arms warfare in supremely difficult terrain. From 17 November 1943 to the capture of the Japanese operating base at Sio in January 1944, tank-infantry teams and liberal use of artillery support was central to the 9th Division’s methods. This was made possible in large part by the division’s willingness to use the littoral for manoeuvre and supply. The ability to use small landing craft to move tanks and guns quickly from base areas to beachheads, and then from beachheads to smaller beachheads, was critical in enabling the Australian tactics. Far from forcing the 9th Division to get light, taking to the sea allowed the Australians to stay heavy.

This was in stark contrast to their Japanese opponents, who even at the start of the campaign struggled to muster comparable firepower and by the end of it were in a state of total logistical collapse. This situation partially reflected the broader materiel weakness of the Japanese war effort, but also the sustained campaign conceived by II Australian Corps and waged by Australian and American units that targeted Japanese logistics. Even as they maximised their use of inshore water, the Allies sought to deny it to the enemy. In this they succeeded, spectacularly, with devastating consequences for the Japanese soldiers on the Huon Peninsula.

Allied domination of the littoral around the Huon Peninsula owed much to two units: the US Army’s 532nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment (EBSR), and the US Navy’s Task Group (TG) 70.1. As this paper will show, both achieved success not through leveraging of overly sophisticated military equipment but rather by using boats that were cheap, simple, survivable, small and easily replaced. Precisely because of this, they were able to sustain operations in contested areas—in turn giving the 9th Division the flexibility to adapt its preferred methods of combined arms warfare to the terrain. The result was the emergence of a littoral team that, in miniature, replicated much of the maritime strategy that guided operations in the South-West Pacific in 1943–44.

The Strategic Context

The Huon Peninsula campaign was one part of the larger Operation CARTWHEEL, designed initially to capture (and subsequently modified to isolate) the Japanese base at Rabaul, in New Britain. The campaign plan called for simultaneous advances up the Solomon Islands by Admiral Halsey’s South Pacific command, and up the coast of New Guinea by General MacArthur’s South-West Pacific Area (SWPA). As Peter Dean has argued, traditionally in a littoral area such as the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, control of the sea enabled control of the land. But the invention of the airplane, and its refinement into an anti-shipping weapon, drastically changed this equation: ‘now the airplane based on land enabled the land to control the sea’.[4] This point was brutally demonstrated in March 1943, when Allied aircraft destroyed a Japanese convoy attempting to move reinforcements from Rabaul to New Guinea in what became known as the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. All eight of the merchant ships in the convoy, and four of the eight escorting destroyers, were sunk. Over a quarter of the 8,470 men in the convoy were killed, and only around 1,300 made it to New Guinea. Huge quantities of stores and artillery were also lost. It was a savage demonstration of the power of the aircraft as an anti-shipping weapon.[5] 

MacArthur thus based his strategy for the execution of the SWPA’s part of CARTWHEEL around air power. There was a beautiful simplicity in this thinking, as Dean outlines:

This strategy rested on air superiority enabling sea control to allow his ground force to leap-frog forward using amphibious warfare, isolating large numbers of Japanese and establishing airfields, ports and logistic bases along the way to allow the advance to continue. This was to be achieved through a joint operational approach contained within a maritime strategy that used the ocean as the space for manoeuvre.[6] 

This concept rendered the Huon Peninsula, and the town of Finschhafen on its eastern tip, important for a number of reasons. Seizing Finschhafen would give the Allies another base area where airfields and port facilities could be developed, ready to support the next leap forward. That leap would be to Cape Gloucester, on the western tip of New Britain and 50 miles east of the Huon Peninsula. The body of water between the two places was divided by Rooke Island into two straits, the Vitiaz and the narrower Dampier. Controlling both sides would deny Japanese vessels entry to the Solomon Sea. Perhaps more important for MacArthur, as the US Navy’s official historian Samuel Morison put it, the Vitiaz and the Dampier ‘were the two principal entrances to the Bismarcks fish weir which must be secured before MacArthur could pass the [Bismarck] Barrier.’[7] Seizing them was thus a critical step in not only executing CARTWHEEL but also setting the conditions for the advance to the Philippines.

The Japanese recognised this reality, and the importance of the straits. Writing post-war, Lieutenant General Yoshihara Tsutomu, Chief of Staff of the 18th Army, described Japanese thinking at the time:

Finschhafen is situated on the eastern edge of New Guinea, and is therefore a strategic point on the west coast of Dampier Strait. Since the Dampier Strait is the barrier between the Solomon Sea and the Bismarck Sea, if the Allied forces could not use this barrier, an advance to the Bismarck Sea area would be extremely difficult… Considering matters from all angles, with Lae and Salamaua fallen, a break through the Dampier Strait would be very easy, and in addition it would confirm with strategy. So it became a problem of holding Lae and Salamaua; the defence of Finschhafen began immediately, and as I have mentioned before, with the enemy’s landing at Hopoi on 4th September, the situation became definite.[8]

The landing which Yoshihara refers to is the arrival of the 9th Division at Red Beach—the opening blow of Operation POSTERN, which aimed to seize Lae. Lae was the major Japanese base in south-eastern New Guinea and was central to their defensive scheme. Its fall would splinter the Japanese position, allowing Allied forces to assault the Huon Peninsula and advance along the Markham and Ramu valleys toward the northern coast of New Guinea. Cunning in concept and well planned and executed, POSTERN succeeded brilliantly. Salamaua, which had provided defensive depth to Lae, fell to Australian soldiers on 11 September, and Lae to men of the 7th Division on 16 September. With the collapse of this position, Finschhafen gained even more importance to Japanese strategy, and reinforcements were hastily ordered from New Guinea’s northern coast to the area. 

Operation POSTERN had been masterminded by General Thomas Blamey, in his role as the commander of New Guinea Force, and his chief of staff Major General Frank Berryman. Blamey and Berryman had anticipated the fall of Lae and had planned out their next two moves. A thrust up the Markham and Ramu valleys would culminate in the seizure of the town of Madang on New Guinea’s northern coast. Seizing the town would deny the Japanese one of their major remaining bases in New Guinea and also isolate the Huon Peninsula. The other operation would be a landing at Finschhafen, to secure the area for development as an Allied base, followed by an advance up the coast to secure the Vitiaz Strait.[9]

The responsibility for the task of capturing Finschhafen would fall to the 9th Division, commanded by General George Wootten. Unlike the 7th Division, which had previous experience fighting the Japanese during the Kokoda Campaign, Operation POSTERN was the 9th’s first experience of fighting in jungle. The division had spent 1941 besieged in Tobruk, and 1942 fighting the first and second battles of El Alamein. It is hard to think of a more severe contrast than that between the open spaces and baking, dry heat of North Africa and the confined, malarial jungle and intense humidity of New Guinea. But the gap between the division’s withdrawal from North Africa in January 1943 and its deployment to New Guinea had given it time to train and prepare for jungle warfare. While the numerous lessons the Australian Army had learned in the first 10 months of war against the Japanese had not been encoded into formal doctrine, they had at least been written down and disseminated.[10] Moreover, the 9th returned from North Africa with a firm belief in combined arms warfare. While it would adapt for its new environment—often in quite substantial organisational ways—it would not be ‘spooked by the jungle’, as Pratten has put it, into abandoning basic tactical principles.[11] The infantry would fight as part of a team.

The Long Road to Finschhafen

Of course, it was easy to aspire to combined arms—another thing to execute it in the jungle. The campaigns of 1942 had made clear what an enormous obstacle the terrain of Papua New Guinea posed to the use of heavy weaponry and vehicles. The lack of roads, the weather, and the density of jungle all conspired against combined arms. The overwhelming reliance of the logistics system on the human back, particularly in forward areas, was also a substantial obstacle to the use of supporting fires—even if the weapons could be moved forward, supplying them with ammunition was an arduous process. The Allies had recognised that movement by sea could overcome some of these problems in the lead-up to the beachhead battles around Buna, Gona and Sananada in late 1942. But the sinking by Japanese aircraft of the small vessels carrying US artillery forward to support these attacks pointed to the hazards of this path, and exacerbated an existing shortage of suitable craft. As it was, tanks delivered by sea proved critical in breaking Japanese resistance around the three towns by early 1943.[12]

The gradual unfurling of MacArthur’s maritime strategy in the first six months of 1943 helped change this situation. As the Fifth Air Force slowly gained the ascendency in the air over New Guinea, the Japanese aerial threat diminished (but did not disappear). This in turn allowed MacArthur’s growing amphibious force to manoeuvre more freely, enabling more areas to be seized via amphibious assault. These areas would be developed into bases that further increased the Fifth’s superiority over its foe, allowing yet more amphibious manoeuvre—a truly virtuous cycle.[13] More importantly, it meant the possibility of using amphibious lift to enable sustained onshore combined arms was becoming more and more feasible.

MacArthur’s amphibious capability rested largely with VII Amphibious Force (Task Force 76) under Rear Admiral Daniel E Barbey, known as ‘Uncle Dan, the amphibious man’. By the time of Operation POSTERN, Barbey could call on an impressive array of specialist landing craft. These ranged from purpose-built Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs), Landing Craft Tank (LCTs) and Landing Craft Infantry (LCIs) to old destroyers that had been converted into fast transports and a range of smaller craft to support them. The LSTs, LCTs and LCIs were particularly valuable as they could, if the beach gradient was right, unload directly onto the shore. The LSTs were the largest, measuring 316 feet in length and capable of carrying over 150 soldiers or 500 tons of cargo. The LCIs were roughly half the size of this, while the LCTs measured a mere 100 feet and could carry 150 tons.[14] While Barbey’s fleet was not quite as impressive as the huge amphibious armadas assembled by the Allies later in the war, it was still a substantial improvement over what had been available a year earlier.[15]

 

Figure 1. An American landing craft brings Australian soldiers into a beach on the north coast of New Guinea.The use of such small craft gave Australian commanders tactical and logistical flexibility during the campaigns of 1943-44. (Source: State Library of Victoria, an011005)

As noted already, the Japanese threat to Barbey’s ships had steadily decreased in the first half of 1943, but their potential was still formidable. How TF 76 reacted to this threat would cause considerable friction with their Australian passengers. The contrast between Morison’s account of TF 76’s performance during the Lae landing and the views of the Australians who participated is marked. Morison highlighted the number of troops (7,800) and volume of supplies (1,500 tons) deposited by mid-afternoon, before describing in detail the heroism of LST crews subject to a punishing attack by Japanese aircraft from 1300.[16] The Australian perspective is somewhat more jaded. The reluctance of some of the captains of the amphibious craft to beach, or finish unloading under threat of enemy air attack, rankled the Australians and had serious operational consequences. One LST that withdrew early on 4 September took all of the 20th Brigade’s Owen gun ammunition with it. Later, on 20 October during the Finschhafen operation, another deposited the tanks of C Squadron, 1 Australian Tank Battalion and then departed after an hour, taking with it most of the squadron’s ammunition, fuel and food.[17] So serious was the issue that Wootten issued an order to his commanders on 26 October to clamp down on anti-USN discussions within units.[18] As John Coates put it, in the eyes of many in the 9th Division ‘the lack of commitment of some amphibious craft commanders in New Guinea was simply not good enough’.[19]

A defence of Barbey and his men can be mounted, however. MacArthur’s entire strategy of maritime manoeuvre rested on VII Amphibious Force. It was, in a sense, the single point of failure for the SWPA’s participation in CARTWHEEL—a perception not helped by the obvious vulnerability of the slow and undergunned landing craft. These vessels were not easy to replace, either; the centrality of amphibious warfare to Allied strategy in Europe and the Pacific put a premium on such craft. Moreover, MacArthur’s timetable kept VII Amphibious Force operating at a relentless place. In light of this, the reluctance of US Navy crews to linger at beachheads is perhaps more understandable. Nor was this a simple crew initiative. The US Navy consistently pushed to restrict the amount of time amphibious ships spent on the beach to a narrow window of night-time as a matter of policy, even at the expense of unloading cargo. This understandably infuriated those fighting ashore.[20]

These tensions would be highlighted in the week after the Finschhafen landings, in an extended argument over whether to reinforce the single brigade that had been put ashore on 22 September. The Australians believed they had secured agreement during operational planning for an additional brigade to be landed, and on the evening of the 22nd Blamey ordered 24th Brigade and 9th Division HQ to be shipped to Finschhafen. Efforts to turn words into reality quickly foundered, however, when Barbey revealed he had been ordered by MacArthur’s General Headquarters (GHQ) to begin preparations for the planned landings at Cape Gloucester—at the expense of the Australians. What followed was a substantial disagreement between MacArthur and his Australian subordinates that only ended when Blamey made a direct appeal to his American superior. MacArthur’s obstinance was underpinned by the erroneous reporting of GHQ intelligence staff that Japanese strength in the area was minimal; that he believed his own staff in Brisbane over the ample evidence generated by the men on the ground speaks to some of his flaws as a commander. Even after Blamey’s message, MacArthur’s acquiescence was limited; the 2/43rd battalion was transported from Lae to Finschhafen on 29 September by fast destroyer transports, while the remainder of the 24th Brigade and 9th Division HQ were not landed by TF 76 until 11 October.[21]

Much has been written about this episode, usually with an eye to the problems of coalition warfare and the substantial (and undoubted) flaws in MacArthur’s style of command.[22] But MacArthur’s stated reasons for resisting the Australian request reveals the premium he placed on VII Amphibious Force and its ability to execute his timetable. In one message explaining his reasoning, MacArthur warned: 

… large forced reinforcements of DIMINISH [Finschhafen] area requires considerable risk to both ship and life. Produces large continuing supply commitment … Requires commitment of amphibious forces necessary for other operations endangering ability for further advance.[23]

As Pratten notes with some understatement, ‘the 20th Brigade was also facing a considerable risk to life’ and the message showed ‘GHQ had lost touch with reality’.[24] Peter Dean judged that MacArthur ‘was putting future operations ahead of current tactical reality’.[25] Both are undoubtedly fair judgements, and MacArthur does seem to have taken some lessons from the dispute. When the Australians requested more reinforcements during the Japanese counterattack that began on 17 October, MacArthur ordered VII Amphibious Force into action.[26] Yet even here the amphibious ships did not linger, again to the annoyance of some of the Australians they delivered. The overall point was clear: the large ships would do the heavy lifting, but they would not tie themselves for long periods to a beachhead.

The sustained amphibious support that would enable the 9th Division’s combined arms warfare would instead come from the 532nd EBSR, part of the US Army’s 2nd Engineer Special Brigade. The brigade’s name was testimony to the conceptual barriers operations in the littoral posed to the services; originally known as Engineer Amphibian Brigades, these were re-designated ‘Special’ in 1943 because of a belief within the upper echelons of the Army that the term ‘amphibian’ should remain the sole domain of the navy. It made little difference to the men in the units, who continued to cheerfully refer to themselves as amphibs during and after the war.[27]

Each Special Brigade had three EBSRs, in turn divided into two parts: a boat battalion and a shore battalion. The boat battalion was designed to be able to move an entire US Army Regimental Combat Team, and so had 120 Landing Craft, Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) and a dozen Landing Craft, Mechanized (LCM)—manned by nearly 1,000 soldiers. The shore battalions were smaller but still substantial units of around 600 men. Their role included loading and unloading supplies on the near and far shores of an amphibious landing, and managing and developing the beachhead.[28]

The equipment of an EBSR was plentiful, but simple. An LCVP was 36 feet 10 inches long, and made largely of plywood. It could carry up to 36 soldiers or 8,100 lb (3,674 kg) of cargo, and reach a top speed of 9 knots. The LCM was of a similar design but larger, capable of carrying up to 60,000 lb (27,215 kg) of cargo—in practice wheeled vehicles or a light tank.[29] Both were easy to build—so easy, in fact, that when production eventually began of landing craft in Australia it occurred not in ship or boat yards but in Ford’s car factories in Brisbane and Geelong.[30] The equipment of the shore battalion—bulldozers, trucks and jeeps, plant equipment for building roads—was largely adapted from civilian use. While the existence of these units was undoubtedly demonstrative of the massive material strength of the US and Allied war effort, it also shows the way in which relatively simple technological capabilities could be leveraged to great effect. The EBSRs were critical not only in enabling Allied amphibious operations but also in maximising use of littoral space to generate combat power ashore.

2ESB had arrived in Australia in early 1943. It was equipped with US-built landing craft, but most of these craft had crossed the Pacific in pieces in order to maximise shipping space, and were frantically reassembled at facilities created for the purpose near Cairns.[31] Once the EBSRs began regaining their craft, training commenced alongside the 9th Division. At the beginning of the war, the US War Department had: 

… visualized engineer amphibian units as made up of highly skilled technicians equipped and trained for the mission of transporting combat elements and their supplies over extended water distances and logistically supporting the landing of those troops on hostile shores.[32] 

Yet in practice, as one US officer sheepishly admitted post-war, when training began 2ESB had as little practical knowledge of amphibious operations as the 9th Division. Perhaps because of this immaturity, training proceeded smoothly as both units learned together. In contrast to the Australians’ view of the US Navy, the relationship between 2ESB and the 9th Division remained strong throughout.[33]

The 532nd ESBR supported the 9th Division during Operation POSTERN. Over 65 LCVPs and LCMs of the regiment were involved in the initial landing, staging out of the port of Morobe.[34] While most vessels returned to Morobe for a second load, 20 remained at the beach to supplement the unloading of ferry supplies along its length. The shore battalion worked to expand the beachhead by building roads and carving dispersal areas out of the jungle.[35] This was necessary in order to provide protection from the inevitable Japanese air attacks, which began at 0705 on the first morning and became regular occurrences thereafter. A shortage of Australian labour and the need to unload VII Amphibious Force landing craft meant work on expansion slowed, and supplies piled up on the beach. When they were moved inland there was not enough space for adequate dispersal of material such as fuel and ammunition, with predictable and devastating consequences after another Japanese air raid in the afternoon.[36] This experience demonstrated why logistics was so difficult in New Guinea—supplies flowed into the beachhead more quickly than they could be moved off it, because creation of the infrastructure necessary for that movement was hard. The partial solution, as shall be seen, was the continued movement of supplies to forward troops by sea, rather than by land.

Figure 2.The joy of logistics in New Guinea.Soldiers work to free a truck that has become bogged in a beach supply dump in the Finschhafen area in 1943.Building and managing such dumps was a key task of the US Army’s Engineer Special Brigades. (Source: State Library of Victoria an011001)

Operation POSTERN was important for the 532nd EBSR in a number of ways. At a basic level, the operation solved the lingering doctrinal question of who was responsible for what during the execution of a landing: the navy would transport material from the near shore to the far shore, where the EBSR would unload it and distribute it.[37] This was not an arrangement without frustrations; the navy’s desire to unload in a limited window at night, in order to minimise the risk to ships, put limits on the amount of cargo that was arriving, aggravating the Australians and putting the 532nd between a rock and a hard place.[38] It was also not absolute; the range of the LCVPs and LCMs meant they could make runs back to Allied base areas at Salamaua and Nassau Bay. On average five LCMs and 35 LCVPs were engaged daily in such activities. Although slow, lightly armoured and armed only with a few machine guns, they proved surprisingly survivable in the face of the still-dangerous Japanese air threat. Their small size and shallow draft made them easy to disperse, and attacking pilots were naturally drawn to larger vessels. The shuttle runs between base areas and beachhead thus continued throughout the operation.[39]

Secondly, Operation POSTERN showed the value of small craft in being able to support the advance of Allied troops. Ninth Division quickly discovered the frustrations of poor or non-existent roads and tracks, torrential rain and limited available motor transport.[40] The small craft of 532nd EBSR helped fill the gap. Nightly convoys of LCVPs and LCMs left Red Beach to take supplies to the forward Australian positions. This was difficult, dangerous work; the landing craft lacked many basic navigation tools, there were numerous uncharted coral reefs, and landing on the wrong beach could mean an encounter with the Japanese.[41]

The importance of these missions was demonstrated by the 24th Brigade’s crossing of the Busu River on 10 September 1943. Usually 700 m wide, it had been swollen by rain, which rendered the speed of the water dangerously high. The river presented a formidable obstacle and had the potential to be turned into substantial line of resistance if the Japanese reinforced those already guarding it.[42] The 2/28th Battalion thus made a quick attack over the river on foot on 9 September and succeeded in establishing a bridgehead under enemy fire; demonstrating the river’s power, 13 men were swept away and drowned. The crossing also cost the battalion 25 per cent of its automatic weapons and approximately 80 rifles.[43] Even after a rope ferry was established over the river, ammunition and general supplies dwindled. Given the obvious problems with crossing the river, on the night of 10/11 September, 24th Brigade requested landing craft be despatched from Burep with supplies for landing on the far side of the Busu, within the 2/28th’s perimeter. Several such craft were driven off by harassing Japanese artillery fire but two landed with a valuable cargo of ammunition. The following night more landing craft were used to ferry supplies from Burep into the bridgehead, a particularly valuable contribution given that the rope ferry washed away overnight and had to be re-established. From 12 September, two landing craft were permanently attached to the 24th Brigade; their first substantial role was ferrying the brigade tactical headquarters and 2/32nd Battalion to the far shore, allowing the advance towards Lae to continue.[44]

The crossing of the Busu also highlighted the third role of the 532nd: the ability to move units and heavy weapons forward and so greatly increase Australian combat power. This was not just carriage of the 2/32nd; the 2/12th Field Regiment used landing craft to move forward as well, both from the beachhead and over the Busu. Unsurprisingly the 24th Brigade appreciated the presence of the guns and during its subsequent advance ‘arty support was used extensively’.[45] Early in the operation, persistent communications issues limited the responsiveness of artillery support, and the brigade found that (unsurprisingly) the closer the guns were to the infantry the better the support. This was made possible, at least in part, by the use of landing craft.[46]

Operation POSTERN came to a rapid conclusion following Lae’s fall. Beyond its strategic significance, the battle for Lae had been a valuable operation for 9th Division and 532nd EBSR to gain experience in amphibious and jungle warfare. The operation had also made plain the potential for the persistent presence of landing craft to enhance the ability of troops operating in a littoral area to generate combat power. There was little time to dwell on this experience, however. The day after Lae’s fall, on 17 September, MacArthur ordered that Finschhafen be seized. After a frantic period of planning, the 20th Brigade embarked on VII Amphibious Force ships near Lae on 21 September. The next day it landed at Scarlett Beach, north of Finschhafen, marking the start of the Huon Peninsula campaign.[47]

Generating Combat Power in the Littoral—the Huon Peninsula Campaign

The 9th Division would demonstrate the way in which use of the littoral could be used to generate combat power ashore in the Huon Peninsula campaign, which lasted from September 1943 to January 1944. The purpose of this paper does not require an extended description of the Huon Peninsula campaign, but a brief summary is necessary.[48] The 20th Brigade landed on 22 September. After heavy fighting, Finschhafen was secured on 2 October. Through this period, it became abundantly clear that Japanese forces were massing inland and to the south in preparation for an offensive to destroy the beachhead. Japanese security was abysmal and the Australians knew in advance that the operation was to begin on the evening of 16 October. In the event, the difficulty of communicating over such a wide area meant that the Japanese offensive, conducted by troops of the 20th Division, was launched in a somewhat uncoordinated manner. Despite heavy fighting and some moments of genuine concern, the 9th Division’s positions held and the Japanese called off their operation on 24 October.[49]

General Herring, commander of I Australian Corps, would later write of the Japanese offensive ‘that we damn nearly lost Finschhafen.’[50] Certainly, the extended argument between the Australians and MacArthur detailed earlier, over the reinforcement of the beachhead with an additional brigade, added more drama to the episode than was necessary. A handful of tactical missteps—reflective of commanders still learning to fight in the jungle—also added to the sense of precarity, as too did the penetration of a Japanese company to the southern end of Scarlett Beach on 18 October. For some of the gunners of 2/4th Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) and 2/12th Field Regiments, firing their weapons over open sights at the attacking Japanese infantry, the situation must have felt very much in the balance. But even this moment illustrated the broader problem with the Japanese offensive. The Australians already had a great deal of firepower ashore; the Japanese had very little. The Australians were well trained enough to hold their ground and not panic when Japanese attacks cut their line of communication to the rear, and the combination of infantry weapons and artillery support extracted a heavy toll. Moreover, Japanese tactical performance was poor, as it largely would be throughout the campaign. As one Australian later observed, his opponents ‘although not lacking a certain amount of courage, were as thick as two planks’.[51]

The Japanese counteroffensive also showed that both sides fighting on the Huon Peninsula appreciated the potential of using the littoral for tactical advantage. At 0445 on the morning of 17 October, three barges were detected running into Scarlett Beach. The 532nd, as well as the various Australian units around the beachhead, had been expecting an attack from the sea, and the distinctive bows of the three vessels clearly identified them as Japanese. This planned attack had already gotten off to a poor start, with four other barges having been sunk well short of their destination by US Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats. Once the survivors got within 50 metres of the beach, a furious fire was opened by defending Australian infantry, members of the 2/4th LAA, and the 532nd. The two-pounder AT guns of the Australians, long since obsolete in Europe, proved particularly effective. One barge withdrew after being damaged, another breached in the surf, and the third managed to run ashore. Despite the enormous advantage in firepower boasted by the defenders, the shape of the beach meant that by the time this surviving barge got ashore it was shielded from much of the Allied fire. One exception was a machine gun manned by Private Nathan Van Noy, Jr, and Corporal Stephen Popa of the 532nd. Although Japanese grenades inflicted mortal wounds, Van Noy stayed at his gun, killing many of the attacking Japanese troops and breaking the momentum of the attack. Van Noy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the attack; it was a powerful reminder both of the need for the amphibious engineers to be able to defend themselves, and that success in combat rested on the determination and bravery of the individual soldier. The surviving Japanese soldiers were mopped up the following day.[52]

This attack on Scarlett Beach shows Japanese commanders clearly appreciated the way in which coastal forces could expedite manoeuvre – by attacking from the sea, the barge force bypassed the main Australian defensive positions and struck straight at the heart of the 9th Division’s logistics and firepower. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the decision to manoeuvre directly onto a defended beach spelled failure for the attack—even considering the seemingly limited objective of disruption rather than occupation. The episode also showed the growing vulnerability of barge traffic—the core of Japanese logistics in the region. November and December 1943 would see an enormous jump in the number of barges destroyed by US fast-attack craft, with devastating consequences for Japanese logistics. 

The Australians had more success in exploiting the littoral during this phase of the campaign than their Japanese opponents. The small craft of the 532nd gave Wootten flexibility. The landing craft were able to bring a steady flow of supplies in to Finschhafen from Lae and other Allied bases further south, while evacuating wounded Australian soldiers on the return trip. These craft also allowed Wootten to move troops from one part of his front to another, ensuring reinforcement of threatened areas. With telephone lines cut by infiltrating Japanese soldiers and wireless often unreliable, the boats also provided a way of maintaining communication between posts.[53] Indeed the 9th Division’s post-operation report highlighted the use of small craft for communications, arguing for the addition of specialist fast boats to any future boat battalion specifically for this role.[54]

With the end of the Japanese counterattack, the 9th Division quickly transitioned back onto the attack. From 17 to 25 November, the 26th Brigade fought to occupy Sattelberg and surrounding peaks. Seizure of this area both helped secure Finschhafen and threatened inland Japanese communications; it was key terrain which the Japanese fought hard to hold. With its capture on 25 November, the division turned to clearing the Wareo-Gusika ridge in order to secure the inland flank of any advance along the coast. This was accomplished on 10 December, five days after the Japanese had decided to withdraw to Sio and five days after the Australian advance on the coast had begun. Just over a month later, on 15 January, Australian soldiers entered Sio—bringing the Huon Peninsula campaign to an end.

Combined arms were central to Australian operations from 17 November onwards. The advantages were immediately obvious. The Matildas were virtually invulnerable to Japanese fire; on 2 December one was hit by five rounds fired from a 75 mm gun at close range and only suffered damage to one track.[55] As a result, the tanks often proved to be the decisive factor, particularly in encounters with rearguard positions during the advance to Sio. Infantry, having mastered the use of walkie-talkie radios to communicate with the tanks, could direct their fire on concealed Japanese positions, which were then systematically destroyed.[56] Where the tanks could not go, liberal use of artillery was substituted. The Japanese made clear that they considered artillery a major reason for their defeat in the campaign; certainly, the difference between the volume of Australian fire and the paucity of Japanese guns was stark.[57]

Figure 3.Sattelberg area, New Guinea, 17 November 1943.Troops of the 2/48th Battalion advance alongside a Matilda tank of the 1st Australian Army Tank Battalion. Despite the difficulties posed by the terrain, tanks proved a key part of the combined arms team during the Finschhafen campaign. (Source: AWM 060606)

The overwhelming fire superiority provided by tanks and artillery was made possible by the availability of the landing craft of 532nd EBSR. A steady stream of small boats moved along the coast in the wake of the 9th Division, ferrying both heavy equipment and supplies. This effort was not without its difficulties. The small landing craft were dependent on the existence of suitable beaches and appropriate weather conditions; the former were not abundant and the latter became increasingly rare as the campaign continued. Even where beaches were available, the need to turn them into beachheads put significant strain on engineering resources. In the 9th Division post-operation report, staff argued that even the 532nd’s generous allocation of craft had proven inadequate for the task ‘and this frequently delayed operations for a period of a few days while units and necessary supplies could be shuttled forward with the craft available’.[58] The report recommended that the LCVPs be limited to beach assault and that for littoral support they be replaced by the larger LCMs, with the overall force supplemented by some LCTs and small cargo vessels capable of operating in rougher weather and with larger loads.[59]

Yet the report and its recommendations showed the basic importance of small craft to 9th Division’s operations on the Huon Peninsula. As the report stated, ‘532 B&S Regt which was under comd of the Div gave excellent service and the fullest cooperation. Facilities such as it offered were indispensable to the prosecution of operations.’[60] The desire for more and bigger craft was a recognition of the potential of logistics in the littoral. As it was, the Australian willingness to use the good-but-not-perfect assets of the 532nd unlocked a range of combat power.[61] As Garth Pratten has pointed out, there was widespread belief within the 9th Division that the human cost of the campaign ‘would have been much higher if not for the advantage conferred by the divisions’ supporting armour and artillery’.[62] This in turn was made possible by the division’s willingness to use the littoral, and the small ships of the 532nd EBSR, to maximum advantage.

Interdicting Japanese Logistics

While exploiting littoral areas for maximum effect, Allied commanders in New Guinea were also keen to deny it to the Japanese. This was particularly important, because one consequence of MacArthur’s maritime strategy was that the Japanese were becoming steadily more reliant on coastal rather than bluewater transportation. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea on 2–3 March 1943 marked the end of Japanese efforts to reinforce Lae and the Huon Peninsula with large convoys, but the need to move reinforcements and supplies to the area from the major bases at Wewak and Rabaul remained as urgent as ever. Even before the defeat in the Bismarck Sea, the Eighth Area Army had recognised the need to improve overland communications from northern New Guinea to the operational areas in the south, and had commenced the construction of a road between Madang and Lae. This task was given to the 20th Division, which had landed at Wewak in January and was intended to reinforce Lae. Progress proved torturously slow, however. By the time the project was abandoned in September 1943, the road had advanced a mere 60 km—roughly a tenth of its estimated final length.[63] After visiting the road in May 1943, Lieutenant-Colonel Kumao Imoto ruefully wrote: ‘Nature the Great will not accommodate an army which challenges its undeveloped and primitive state with hand-held shovels and pickaxes.’[64]

What caused the project to be abandoned was the Allied landings at Lae. The 20th Division was ordered to advance immediately to reinforce Finschhafen; the men would walk along coastal tracks, while the heavy equipment moved by barge. It was these two forms of transport that would form the backbone of Japanese logistics in the campaign. For obvious reasons, waterborne transport was the preferred option. Prior to September 1943, responsibility for movement along the coast east of Wewak lay with the 9th and 5th Shipping Engineer regiments. After the landings at Lae, the area the two regiments were tasked to operate in moved steadily eastward, the gap behind them being filled by fishing auxiliary vessels brought forward from Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. In the aftermath of the failed Japanese counteroffensive at Sattelberg, all distinction was lost; the fishing boats began operating as far east as Sio.[65] These shifts show how vital these vessels were to Japanese logistics—as the fighting intensified in the Huon, the best way to satisfy spiking logistical requirements was to transport material by sea, and in an environment of growing Allied air superiority this could only be done close inshore.

The barges the 9th and 5th regiments used were slow and small, but had a number of advantages over larger, faster vessels. Their shallow draft meant they could operate very close to the shoreline. During the day this meant they could take shelter in small inlets; covered in freshly cut vegetation, they were extremely difficult to detect from the air. At night, when they usually chose to move, they remained hard to spot against the dark landmass behind them. They were also protected by the coral reefs that fringed the New Guinea coast; anyone getting close enough to find or fight them risked running aground in the poorly charted waters.[66]

Australian commanders understood the fragility of Japanese logistics and sought to exploit it. In early October, a specialist staff was set up within HQ II Corps to ‘determine the points at which the enemy supply system could be most profitably attacked and the best times at which to attack it.’[67] This analysis underpinned a decision to conduct an offensive against the Japanese logistics system prior to the 26th Brigade’s attack on Sattelberg in November. It was hoped that by using air and sea power, the collapse of Japanese logistics that had accompanied every campaign in New Guinea to date could be accelerated—and 9th Division would reap the benefits.

The offensive had three major lines of effort: prevention of the use of local carriers, prevention of the use of barges and submarines, and the overall prevention of the movement of supplies forward. Aircraft from the Fifth Air Force played a large role in all three. From early November suspected assembly areas for local food, coastal tracks and known and suspected supply dumps and barge off-load points were bombed and strafed. Results were seen as positive, although the terrain made observation of post-strike results difficult. A definite victory in the pursuit of the third objective, however, came on 20 November when 2/23rd battalion occupied ‘Pabu Hill’.[68] This feature dominated a track running between Bonga and the nearby harbour of Gusika, and the inland town of Wareo. Patrols from mid-October onwards had revealed the track to be a major Japanese supply route. Its importance to Japanese logistics was shown by the violent reaction provoked when the 2/23rd captured it. The battalion was besieged and under repeated heavy attack for 10 days until relieved. Throughout this, the Australians were astonished to see Japanese carrier parties continue to move freely along the track, seemingly oblivious to both the presence of the 2/23rd and the Japanese infantry attempting to dislodge them. These parties were easily destroyed by mortar and machine-gun fire.[69]

The patrols that had initially identified the Wareo-Bonga track could clearly hear barges moving along the coast at night, and believed the soldiers they were observing had likely just disembarked. It was these vessels that were the foundation of Japanese logistics on the Huon Peninsula, and their destruction would see the system collapse. The ability of the Japanese to operate inshore at night, however, made them particularly hard targets. From 2 October to 10 January Fifth Air Force flew 12 separate missions aimed at sinking barges, with over 120 aircraft involved. Five of the missions encountered no barges at all; the remaining seven yielded 10 barges destroyed, another 10 possibly destroyed, six damaged and 11 attacked with unknown results. Even with the most optimistic reading of results, air power had succeeded in averaging 10 destroyed barges a month—not insignificant, but hardly a crippling blow.[70]

The forces that would ultimately smash the barge fleet were the PT boats of the Seventh Fleet’s Task Group 70.1. By dominating the water around the Huon Peninsula, TG 70.1 was able to dismember the logistics of the Japanese and severely hinder their ability to use the littoral for manoeuvre, while contributing to an environment in which it was safe for Allied small craft to operate. They accomplished this thanks to their small size, their simplicity, and the ability of their logistical support to rapidly move forward in line with the Allied advance. The actions of TG 70.1 during the Huon Peninsula campaign, and in particular from October onwards, would be an important demonstration of the value of denying the littoral to the enemy while simultaneously exploiting it.

Originally ordered by the US Navy for a harbour defence role, the PT boats were seen as a considerably cheaper way to deliver a torpedo than a full-sized destroyer. They were designed to be fast, manoeuvrable and simple. Between 77 and 86 feet long, made primarily of wood and powered by three Packard engines, they could be built in small civilian yards. Their initial armament—four torpedoes and two machine guns—reflected the investment in simplicity. Although the hulls proved surprisingly strong, and the Packard engines surprisingly reliable, these were not craft designed to last; in January 1945 the US Navy judged the typical service life of a boat to be just two years.[71] 

What started out as a simple design grew increasingly complex, however—not through design but through in-theatre modifications. The Japanese had first used barges to provide supply in forward, contested areas during the Guadalcanal campaign. Tasked to interdict these supply lines, PT boat crews had quickly discovered that the shallow draft of the barges limited the usefulness of torpedoes. As a result, crews began mounting more and ever-heavier guns on their boats in an effort to sink their opponents. The Japanese responded by adding armour and guns of their own. This miniature arms race (as one historian put it) accelerated even faster in New Guinea, where the rarity of large Japanese ships meant crews were increasingly willing to sacrifice some of their torpedo capacity in favour of more and larger guns.[72] At the end of October 1943 two PT boat squadrons, 12 and 7, were operating in New Guinea; their boats carried either a 40 mm Bofors cannon in the stern or a 37 mm army anti-tank gun strapped to a makeshift mount forward. So enamoured was the commander of the incoming Squadron 21 with the Bofors that he sourced enough from the Royal Australian Navy to have one installed on each of his boats. The squadron arrived in New Guinea in early November, substantially boosting the firepower of the PT boat force.[73]

This power was on immediate display. In October the two PT boat squadrons had claimed just 9 barges sunk or destroyed. In November this figure leapt to 45, with an additional six claimed as damaged; December and January saw a further 102 barges destroyed. This increase partially reflected levels of Japanese activity: holding the Huon Peninsula was important, and supplying the force necessary to hold it could only be accomplished through heavy use of the barge force. Unsurprisingly, the capture of Sio in January and US landings further west brought a reduction in activity, with just 17 barges sunk in February.[74] 

But the massive increase in sunk barges also reflected changes in equipment, numbers and tactics. The reliability, accuracy and destructive power of the Bofors clearly improved results. So too did the addition of new and better radars, installed by crews at forward bases in New Guinea. The overall numbers of the PT boat force increased, with one new squadron arriving in December, January and February. Finally, the boats themselves adopted new, more aggressive tactics by operating much closer to shore and thus closer to the barges. This came at a cost: the heaviest single cause of PT boat losses, far in excess of enemy action, was grounding on uncharted reefs. However, tactics were adopted to minimise this risk (boats operated in echelon, so those trailing the leader were further out to sea), and ultimately the rewards were judged to be worth the risk.[75] After the grounding of PT 147 off Teliata Point on the night of 19/20 November, the commander of Squadron 12, Lieutenant Commander Harllee, wrote: 

It is not felt that the officer-in-tactical-command is deserving of censure for this grounding, as PT’s have had to take such risks in order to effectively attack Japanese coastal barge traffic. In the past, these risks have proven worthwhile.[76] 

The massive destruction wrought by the PT boats in Japanese coastal traffic, and the wider offensive against the Japanese supply system, had a clear impact. As the Battle of Sattelberg concluded, evidence of Japanese privation began to emerge; when the advance to Sio began it was overwhelming. ‘Hubika Creek was an indescribable scene’, read the war diary of 2/13th Battalion. ‘Naked enemy dead everywhere. Evidently used as a dressing station. 40 dead in one small cave. None had been buried. The area was foul and nauseating.’[77] A subsequent summary by II Corps argued that the overall effect of the war on Japanese logistics was: 

Japanese forces in the inland or SATELBERG area starved, and his forces on the coast were on half rations for so long that disease took a great toll and the state of his forces could only be described as pitiful.[78]

In a letter written by General Berryman to Commander MC Mumma (commander of TG 70.1) at the start of December, the Australian set out ‘the cumulative effect of the activities of your command’ and ‘the telling effect’ that had been ‘wrought upon the enemy’s land forces in the Finschhafen area’. This included not only increased evidence of starvation but also shortages of artillery ammunition, the dispersal of artillery pieces away from the battlefield into coastal sites in an effort to deter the PT boats and protect the barges, and the need to use frontline Japanese soldiers as porters. Berryman also thanked the Americans for their willingness to act as fast transport for urgent items, such as blood plasma. ‘All ranks of 2 Aust Corps appreciate your help,’ Berryman concluded, ‘and, I know, will join me in wishing you every continued success’.[79]

This feeling was undoubtedly mutual. Part of the strength of Macarthur’s maritime strategy was the way the interplay of the three domains strengthened each in turn. Since April 1943 Morobe Harbour, roughly halfway between Buna and Salamaua, had been used as the forward base for the PT boats.[80] The main base was at Milne Bay, some 300 miles in the rear. As the Allies advanced, the distance the boats had to travel simply to reach their patrol stations steadily increased. In the immediate aftermath of the Finschhafen landings, the Morobe-based boats had to travel 100 miles before arriving on station. The obvious solution was to advance the forward operating base, and on 25 November Squadron 21 arrived in Dreger Harbour, Finschhafen. Operations began two days later, and five days after that Morobe was shut down as a PT boat base. By capturing Finschhafen, the 9th Division had created the conditions for naval assets to deploy forward and operate against Japanese supply lines, in turn facilitating the 9th Division’s continued advance across the Huon Peninsula.

The move to Finschhafen was also made possible by the mobility of TG 70.1’s logistics support. The PT boats relied not on shore-bound facilities but on tenders, ships specifically converted to support PT boat operations. The first was USS Hilo, a former yacht that had been bought by the US Navy in November 1941 and converted over the following six months. USS Hilo was originally anchored at Milne Bay; by mid-August 1943 the threat of air attack was considered sufficiently reduced that she was allowed to move forward to Buna. There she was joined by two additional tenders, USS Portunus and LST 201 (eventually renamed USS Pontus).[81]

Yet while the mobility of these tenders was valued, Commander Mumma recognised the disadvantage of having everything crammed in single, vulnerable hulls. In March 1943 this point had been underlined neatly when the sinking of MS Masaya and her cargo of fuel, parts and radio equipment near Oro Bay had set back the efforts to establish a forward base at Douglas Harbor by nearly a month. Consequently, he had directed the fabrication in Australia of equipment for a number of advanced base units. These units themselves could be shipped on a single LST; their floating equipment, including dry docks, cranes, fuel storage and repair shops, could be towed by tugs. These base units offered the bare minimum to keep boats in operation, but could be rapidly moved forward and offered a more difficult target to Japanese aircraft than a single large tender.[82] The equipment for one such advanced base was carried into Dreger Harbour on board two LCTs on 25 November, enabling the rapid commencement of operations from that point.

The Huon Peninsula campaign was only one episode in a long war for PT boat crews. US landings at Saidor on 2 January 1944 and in the Admiralties on 1 March allowed TG 70.1 to again leapfrog its operating bases forward and focus on supporting the next Allied advance.[83] But in retrospect it was as strong a demonstration as any of the potential of dominating the littoral. Like the Allies, the Japanese recognised the potential that small coastal vessels had for providing logistics support to ground forces in an environment where overland movement was difficult, and open water spaces heavily contested. While small size came with disadvantages, it improved survivability and reduced dependency on port facilities for loading and unloading. By the time of the Allied landings at Finschhafen, Japanese logistics in the area were heavily dependent on these barges. By targeting these barges—with small, cheap craft that were quickly modified in theatre for the specific task at hand—the Allies were able to accelerate a collapse in Japanese logistics that delivered demonstrable advantages to the 9th Division as it advanced towards Sio.

Conclusion

In his postwar memoir Southern Cross, Lieutenant General Yoshihara Tsutomu reflected on the reasons for Japanese defeat in the Huon Peninsula:

As I have said before, equipment makes all the difference in the world; in addition we had numerous casualties and sick people, who in addition had empty stomachs. They transferred to the complex and confusing mountain tracks and gradually arranged their resistance. The enemy covered the grassland area along the coast from the airfield and with tanks and made assaults from the coast on to their flanks. Faced with the immense material strength of the enemy, our primitive pressing attacks were a poor reply.[84]

Tsutomu’s explanation is telling. On the one hand the Australians had clear materiel superiority, and the impression which their armour made is clear. On the other, the Japanese logistical situation was collapsing; soldiers went hungry while the sick and wounded could not be evacuated. Defeat was inevitable.

This situation came about in part because the Allies were able to deny the use of littoral areas to the Japanese, while maximising their use for themselves. Denial came through a coordinated air and sea campaign that had at its centre the PT boats of Task Group 70.1 These boats badly hurt the Japanese logistics system, while helping create the conditions in which the Allies could use the littoral for their own ends. It was precisely this control of the littoral that allowed 9th Division to deploy tanks and artillery and keep them supplied, enabling combined arms tactics that substituted—though of course not fully—firepower for lives. When the infantry of the 2/48th crossed their start line at Sattelberg on 17 November, they benefited from an unprecedented level of indirect fire support, while ahead of them moved tanks that were virtually invulnerable to any weapon the Japanese could deploy against them. At the same time, the logistical system of their enemy was being steadily eroded to the point where it would collapse entirely. Both of these things were made possible by domination and maximisation of the littoral space. Moreover, this control and exploitation of the littoral rested not on sophisticated, complicated or expensive military equipment but on basic small ships that were quick to make and easily replaced. Landing craft could be built in car factories; PT boats could be built in civilian yacht yards. Indeed, it was precisely because these craft and boats were small and cheap that they were able to operate and thrive in an environment where larger vessels were considered too valuable to risk for anything more than short periods. 

Trying to draw lessons from the past is frequently a fraught undertaking, and no historical analogy is perfect. But modern practitioners should be able to draw inspiration from the past, and it is in this spirit that this paper has been written. Three clear points stand out in this regard. The first is that the ability of the 9th Division to use the littoral to deploy more combat power, not less, should provoke thought around the modern Australian Defence Force (ADF) attitude to amphibious warfare. The 9th Division, like all Australian divisions, had been reorganised to strip off excess units and equipment in order to make it easier to operate in the difficult logistical environment of New Guinea. This did not mean, however, that it could not move heavy weapons forward or use them in the jungle. Instead, movement was made possible by using the sea and, while this equipment was usually initially landed by large amphibious ships, its continued use during the campaign rested on the use of small craft. Most importantly, the effort put into moving these weapons was clearly justified by their performance on the battlefield. Tanks and artillery gave the 9th Division an enormous advantage during the close-in fight, saving countless Australian lives. 

The second point is that the ability to move these tanks and guns forward—not to mention supplies and men—rested on a unit composed of small landing craft. Because these craft were small, Allied commanders were more willing to risk them in contested areas than larger, more valuable amphibious ships. Moreover, their size provided tactical flexibility in coastal areas. The 9th Division’s post-operation report noted both that such craft were essential to the conduct of the campaign and that in future a divisional-sized force should have more of them, and that they should, at minimum, be large enough to carry vehicles. Investment in small craft gave the Allies logistical flexibility and power, but also increased survivability in contested waters.

The third point is that the advantages of operating in the littoral are so obvious, an enemy is likely to do it too—and so denying them use of it becomes a priority. The modern equivalent of PT boats are fast attack craft, but it is by no means clear that these are the only option. The PT boats succeeded because they could be risked inshore, could be rapidly adapted to changing threats, and were able to operate from bare-bones facilities just behind the Allied land advance. There are clearly a range of options across multiple domains that would allow the modern ADF to achieve similar effects. 

History is not prescriptive, and should not be treated as such. But as is so often the case when the ADF is confronted with emerging problems, it can find inspiration in its own past. The three services spent much of the Second World War mastering the art of amphibious operations. The Huon Peninsula campaign was one important part of this—but only one part. Further research can undoubtedly provide further guidance as the modern integrated force returns to the littoral.

About the Author

Dr Tom Richardson is a historian at UNSW Canberra. He specialises in Australian military history. His first book, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuoc Tuy 1966-1972, was published by Cambridge in 2017, and a book on the Australian Army in South Africa, Soldiers and Bushmen, is forthcoming. He is currently working on a history of the Australian Army and limited war in Asia.

Endnotes