Battle of Arawe
The Allies secured Arawe after about a month of intermittent fighting with the outnumbered Japanese force. Initial Allied goals for the landing at Arawe included securing a base for American PT boats and diverting Japanese forces away from Cape Gloucester. In mid-January 1944 the American force, reinforced with additional infantry and tanks, launched a brief offensive that pushed the Japanese back. There is no consensus among historians on whether the Allied offensive at Ara We was necessary.
About Battle of Arawe in brief
The Battle of Arawe was fought between Allied and Japanese forces during the New Britain Campaign of World War II. The Allies secured Arawe after about a month of intermittent fighting with the outnumbered Japanese force. Initial Allied goals for the landing at Arawe included securing a base for American PT boats and diverting Japanese forces away from Cape Gloucester. The main Allied landing on 15 December was successful, despite a failed subsidiary landing and problems coordinating the landing craft. Japanese air units made large-scale raids against the Arawe area in the days after the landing. In mid-January 1944 the American force, reinforced with additional infantry and tanks, launched a brief offensive that pushed the Japanese back. The Japanese units at AraWe withdrew from the area towards the end of February as part of a general retreat from western New Britain. There is no consensus among historians on whether the Allied offensive at Ara We was necessary. Some have argued that the entire campaign in western NewBritain was unnecessary, and that the force employed at Ara we could have been better used elsewhere. In June 1942, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that the main objective of the Allied forces in the South Pacific and Southwest Pacific area commands was to capture the major Japanese base at Rabaul on the eastern tip of New Guinea. The Allied offensive to capture Rabaul was called Operation Cartwheel. During the next five months, Australian and U.
S. forces under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur advanced along the north coast of eastern New Guinea, capturing the town of Lae and the Huon Peninsula. On 22 September 1943, MacArthur’s General Headquarters directed Lieutenant General Walter Krueger’s Alamo Force to secure western New Britain and the surrounding islands. The first objective was to secure air and PT boat bases to attack the Japanese forces at Vitiaz and Dampier Straits between New Guinea and New Britain so that convoys could pass safely through them. The second objective was to secure the north-east coast of New Guinea so that further landings could be conducted along New Guinea’s north coast. To this end, Lieutenant General George Gasmata directed that Operation Marine Code-named The 1stMarine Division was selected for the operation, which was code-named Cape Gloucester. This offensive was directed by General George Kenney, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, and heavily reinforced the 32nd Infantry Division from the 126th Regimental Combat Team from the United States. In December 1943, General Kenney ordered the capture of Cape Gasmata on New guinea’s south coast and the capture of the south coast of Cape Gloucester and the Bismarck Archipelago. The operation was codenamed Operation Admiral Wade. In January 1944, Allied forces under General Douglas MacArthur commanded the invasion of New Guinea and the liberation of the Solomon Islands.
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This page is based on the article Battle of Arawe published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
