Alotau

We boarded the Silver Discoverer at Cairns and had a day at sea before arriving at Alotau, a sleepy town in the southeast of Papua New Guinea, nestled in the hillsides of the northern shore of Milne Bay.

Alotau played a pivotal role in the WWII Battle of Milne Bay—it was here that the Japanese suffered their first defeat in the Pacific War in 1942, before the Kokoda Track battle.. As a consequence, there are several memorials and relics to commemorate the town’s significance, and we had a half-day tour to explore them. There were a couple of memorial park at the old battle sites commemorates the events.

Alotau became the provincial capital in 1969 after it was shifted from Samarai. There is a road from Ulumani to Alotau which passes the local Gurney Airport, named after squadron leader Charles Raymond Gurney of the RAAF, who was killed in the area in 1942. The airport is located 12 km from the town. Alotau is the gateway to the Milne Bay Province which contains some of the most remote island communities in the world. Milne Bay is noted for its coral reef and scuba diving experiences.

The Battle of Milne Bay (25 August – 7 September 1942) was Japans first defeat in WW2. The Japanese wanted to take control of the Allied airfields at Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea, which would have given them a springboard for attacking mainland Australia. . Due to poor intelligence work, the Japanese miscalculated the size of the predominantly Australian garrison and, believing that the airfields were only defended by two or three companies, initially landed a force of about 1000 men on 25 August 1942. The Allies however, forewarned by intelligence from Ultra, had heavily reinforced the garrison.

By 22 August there were 7,459 Australian and 1,365 US Army personnel at Milne Bay, of whom about 4,500 were infantry. There were also about 600 RAAF personnel. The Allies had superior intelligence about Japanese plans. The Japanese knew very little about Allied forces at Milne Bay,while the Allies received advanced warning that the Japanese were planning an invasion. In mid-July codebreakers informed MacArthur that toward the end of August the Japanese planned to attack Milne Bay. They provided detailed information about the numbers of soldiers to expect, which units would be involved, their standard of training, and the names of the ships that the Japanese had allocated to the operation. After Allied Naval Forces Ultra decrypted a message that disclosed that a Japanese submarine piquet line had been established to cover the approaches to Milne Bay, Willoughby predicted that an attack was imminent. In response MacArthur rushed the 18th Infantry Brigade to Milne Bay. The commander of the Allied Air Forces, ordered air patrols stepped up over the likely Japanese invasion routes. He also ordered pre-emptive air strikes against the Japanese airfields at Buna on 24 and 25 August which reduced the number of Japanese fighters available to support the attack on Milne Bay to just six.

The Japanese landed on the wrong beach, further from their target than they had intended. But they quickly began their advance towards the airfields. Heavy fighting followed as they encountered the Australian Militia troops that formed the first line of defence. These troops were steadily pushed back, but the Australians brought forward veteran Second Australian Imperial Force units that the Japanese had not expected. Allied air superiority eventually tipped the balance, providing close support to troops in combat and targeting Japanese logistics. Finding themselves outnumbered, lacking supplies and suffering heavy casualties, the Japanese eventually withdrew their forces, with fighting coming to an end on 7 September 1942.
26 August , advancing west at dawn along the coast with armoured support, the Japanese had reached the main position manned by troops from B Company, 61st Infantry Battalion, around KB Mission.The Japanese force moved through the jungle at the edge of the coastal track, and was headed by two light tanks. Although they lacked anti-armour weapons,the Australians were able to turn back the Japanese attack.
Anticipating an armoured attack at dawn, the Australians withdrew back to the Gama River, which was situated 1 mile to the west
27 Aug. 420 Australian troops were used as an attempt to establish a blocking force at KB Mission. But the Australians had no knowledge of the strength or intentions of the Japanese. The 2/10th's forward patrols made contact with the 61st Infantry Battalion at around 10:30 am and upon arrival at around 5:00 pm, they began to establish their position; with only limited entrenching tools, they found the going difficult. At this point, the troops from the 25th and 61st Battalion were ordered to pull back, having lost 18 men killed and a further 18 wounded, along with an unknown number missing in action.
At 8:00 pm the Japanese sent in two Type 95 tanks. The men from the 2/10th tried to disable them with sticky bombs, but due to the humid conditions the bombs failed to adhere to the Japanese armour. In the fighting that followed the Australians suffered heavy casualties. They repelled four frontal attacks. However, by midnight the Japanese were inside the Australian position and in the confusion the 2/10th withdrew in some disorder to a number of scattered positions on the west bank of the Gama, which they reached by about 2:00 am on 28 August. A further assault, however, by tank-mounted infantry forced them back further, moving back towards No. 3 Airstrip, which was still under construction, south of Kilarbo. During the brief engagement around KB Mission, they had lost 43 men killed and another 26 wounded.
28 August. As the 2/10th withdrew, the 25th Infantry Battalion, deployed around the airstrip. The airstrip proved a perfect defensive location, offering a wide, clear field of fire, while at its end, thick mud served to prevent the movement of Japanese tanks. Around dawn the advancing Japanese troops reached the airstrip and, under the cover of field artillery and mortars, they launched an attack. The tanks that were supporting the attack became stuck in the mud and were subsequently abandoned;. Meanwhile, troops from the 25th and 61st Infantry Battalions, along with Americans from the 709th Anti-Aircraft Battery turned back the attacking Japanese infantry. Further strafing by Kittyhawks followed, and the Japanese were forced to fall back 2 kilometres to the east of Rabi.
29 August and 30 August. Following this, for the next two days there was a lull in the fighting during which Japanese reinforcements were landed
31 August. The Japanese began forming up along the track at the eastern end of No. 3 Airstrip by the sea and at 3:00 am they launched their attack. Advancing over open ground and illuminated by flares fired by the Australians, the first Japanese attack was repelled by heavy machine gun and mortar fire from 25th and 61st Infantry Battalions as well as the 46th Engineer General Service Regiment, and artillery fire from the Australian 2/5th Field Regiment. A further two banzai charges were attempted only to meet the same fate, with heavy Japanese casualties. The Japanese survivors of the attack reformed in the dead ground around Poin Creek, 200 yards north of the airstrip in an attempt to outflank the 61st Infantry Battalion's positions on Stephen's Ridge. After running into a platoon of Australians who engaged them with Bren light machine guns, the Japanese withdrew just before dawn to the sounds of a bugle call.The Japanese troops who survived this attack were shocked by the heavy firepower the Allied forces had been able to deploy, and the assault force was left in a state of disarray.
31 August the Australians began advancing and struggling through muddy conditions along the track, which had been turned into a quagmire due to the heavy rain and equally heavy traffic .Making slow going amidst considerable resistance, the Australians nevertheless reached KB Mission late in the day. A force of Japanese remained there, and the Australians attacked with bayonets fixed. In the fighting that followed 60 Japanese were killed or wounded. The Australians were then able to firmly establish themselves at the mission
1 September, the 2/12th Infantry Battalion went on the offensive again, while a force of seven Kittyhawks attacked the Japanese headquarters around Waga Waga. By this time, the Japanese had abandoned the objective of reaching the airfields and instead sought only to hold off the Australians long enough to be evacuated.
2 September Yano sent a radio message to the headquarters of the 8th Fleet which stated: "[w]e have reached the worst possible situation. We will together calmly defend our position to the death. We pray for absolute victory for the empire and for long-lasting fortune in battle for you all"
3 September, the 2/9th Infantry Battalion came up against significant resistance; in one engagement that took place around mid-morning along a stream to the west of Elevada Creek they lost 34 men killed or wounded as they attempted to force their way across a creek
4 September, the Australian advance continued as the 2/9th moved up the coast either side of the coastal track. The advance company struck a Japanese defensive position at Goroni. Throughout the day the Australians worked to outflank the position before launching an attack at 3:15 pm. During this action, one of the 2/9th's sections was held up by fire from three Japanese machine gun positions. Corporal John French ordered the other members of the section to take cover before he attacked and destroyed two of the machine guns with grenades. French then attacked the third position with his Thompson submachine gun. The Japanese firing ceased and the Australian section advanced to find that the machine gunners had been killed and that French had died in front of the third position. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his "cool courage and disregard of his own personal safety" which "saved members of his section from heavy casualties and was responsible for the successful conclusion of the attack". By the end of the 4th, the Japanese force included only 50 fully fit soldiers; all the other surviving troops were either incapacitated or could only offer token resistance. In addition, the commanders of all the Japanese companies had been killed and only three or four platoon leaders remained.
5 September, the Japanese high command ordered a withdrawal. This was carried out from the sea that evening.
A Japanese source reported 625 killed in action. Of the 1,943 Japanese soldiers that were landed at Milne Bay over the period of the fighting, ships from the Japanese 18th Cruiser Division managed to evacuate 1,318 personnel, including 311 who were wounded. The Australians suffered 373 casualties, of which 167 were killed or missing in action. US forces lost 14 personnel killed and several wounded.

The battle is considered to be the first in the Pacific campaign in which Allied troops decisively defeated Japanese land forces. Although Japanese land forces had experienced local setbacks elsewhere in the Pacific earlier in the war, unlike at Milne Bay, these actions had not forced them to withdraw completely and abandon their strategic objective. As a result of the battle, Allied morale was boosted and Milne Bay was developed into a major Allied base, which was used to mount subsequent operations in the region.

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