Book Review - Operation Postern
The Battle to Recapture Lae from the Japanese, 1943
by Ian Howie-Willis
Big Sky Publishing, 2023, 480 pp.
ISBN 9781922896148
Reviewed by: Tom Richardson
In September 1943, Allied forces seized the town of Lae on the northern New Guinea coast in an operation codenamed POSTERN. On 4 September, the 9th Australian Division went ashore east of Lae to little immediate Japanese resistance and began advancing towards their objective. The next day, the US 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment seized the airfield at Nadzab, to the north of Lae. The 7th Australian Division was then flown into the airhead, allowing it to block Japanese reinforcements from moving down the Markham Valley while also enveloping Lae itself. While initially providing stubborn resistance, the Japanese soon realised the hopelessness of their position and abandoned Lae, marching overland into the Huon Peninsula. The town fell on 15 September.
Lae’s significance lay in the fact that it was the centre of the Japanese defensive scheme in New Guinea. Seizing it would not only unhinge that defence but would also allow the seizure of the Huon Peninsula and the town of Madang on New Guinea’s northern coastline. This in turn would ensure Allied control of the Vitiaz Strait, isolating Rabaul, and would provide a jumping-off point for subsequent offensives aimed at the Philippines. Operation Postern was thus a fulcrum for much of what transpired in the South-West Pacific and beyond over the following six months. Moreover, it was a classic example of a maritime strategy at work. The seizure of Lae, made possible by air, sea and land power combining in an amphibious operation, allowed the construction of airfields that gave the Allies local air superiority. This in turn created conditions in which Allied naval power could operate and project power forward in subsequent amphibious operations, aimed at areas where new airfields could be built—continuing a cycle that would take the Allies all the way to the Philippines and beyond.
For the Australian Army, Operation Postern—along with the subsequent operations in the Markham and Ramu valleys, Finisterre Ranges and Huon Peninsula—has always held a particular fascination. In the Army’s current circumstances, it is easy to see why: Operation Postern was a complex integrated amphibious operation undertaken in the area where the ADF expects to operate in the future. But even before this particular moment, Operation Postern was intensively studied. Corps-sized operations planned and commanded by Australian headquarters with Australian soldiers are rare; those with the complexity of the seizure of Lae are even rarer. For all these reasons, it is a campaign worth paying attention to.
Ian Howie-Willis’s Operation Postern: The Battle to Recapture Lae from the Japanese, 1943 is a straightforward introduction to the campaign. In his narrative concerning the operation itself, Howie-Willis does not break any new ground; his principal source is the relevant volume of the Official Histories, David Dexter’s The New Guinea Offensives, first published in 1961. Those who have read Dexter’s volume (or more recent accounts of the campaign, such as Peter Dean’s MacArthur’s Coalition or Philip Bradley’s D-Day New Guinea) will thus find few surprises here. For those new to the story of Operation Postern, however, Howie-Willis’s work is a decent entry point. He writes clearly and does a fine job explaining the sequencing of the complex operation. He also does not shy away from discussing controversies such as who should have taken responsibility for the escape of a substantial part of the Japanese garrison, outlining the relevant positions in such arguments. Further, he does not forget the struggles of the ordinary soldiers involved, and he makes clear just how difficult it was to fight and live in the environment of the South-West Pacific.
Where Howie-Willis does add something new to the existing literature is in his treatment of the Papua New Guineans. For much of the period from 1965 to 1973, Howie-Willis worked as a teacher and lecturer in Papua New Guinea, first near Wewak and then in Lae. His time in the country made him aware not only of the impact of the war but also of the role of the civilian population, who—apart from shallow narratives about ‘fuzzy wuzzy angels’—had been largely ignored in accounts of the war to that point. Operation Postern is thus ‘in part, an attempt to include them in the story because they were always a third party to the campaigns mounted in their territory’.
As well as mentioning them throughout the book, Howie-Willis devotes an entire chapter to analysing the impact of the Japanese occupation, and subsequent fighting, on the communities around Lae and on the Huon Peninsula. Many villages were squeezed between the two sides, being under Allied air attack during the day and then having the Japanese arrive to steal food at night. Communities fled into the jungle, becoming functional refugees. Even after the fighting ended, many could not reclaim their land, as it had instead been claimed by the Allies for use as an airfield or supply dump. Howie-Willis also makes clear how crucial local civilians were for Allied logistics, and not just to work as carriers. Men from around Lae were expected to build facilities, to serve as labourers and stevedores, and to do the construction work necessary to drain the stagnant pools of water in which malaria-carrying mosquitos bred. Rebuilding their own houses or gardens often fell by the wayside.
Howie-Willis also discusses the thorny issue of collaboration. The departure of the Australians in 1942 and the arrival of the Japanese upset the old colonial order, and some Papua New Guineans looked to profit from this—or were coerced into it. When the Japanese retreated and the Australian military returned, so too did the old order, and scores were inevitably settled. Howie-Willis’s description of how factions within villages looked to exploit these changes, and enlisted the help of the Australians or Japanese to achieve their own ends, will probably sound familiar to those who served in recent operations in the Middle East. The narrative is also a powerful reminder both that civilian populations will not simply disappear in a conventional war, and that the boundary between conventional and unconventional warfare is not as firm as the names suggest.
Operation Postern is thus a valuable starting point for anyone interested in learning about its namesake, and about the war in New Guinea in all its complexity.
