MacArthur Strikes Back — Decision at Buna:
New Guinea, 1942-1943

By Harry Gailey. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2000. 267 pp., $27.95.

Lt Col Harold E. Raugh, Jr., United States Army (Retd) reviews these books exclusively for DJ.

The Japanese, after their stunning victory at Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, continued their conquests in the Pacific area. Their strategic defeat at the battle of the Coral Sea (7-8 May 1942) dashed Japanese hopes for a naval landing at Port Moresby (on the southern coast of New Guinea), from where they could interdict Allied supply lines to Australia. The Japanese did, however, continue to hold a number of towns, including Gona, Sanananda, and Buna on the northern coast of New Guinea.
US Army General Douglas MacArthur became commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific in March 1942. As his plans for conducting an offensive developed, MacArthur realized he would need to seize the Buna area and establish an airfield to support subsequent operations. Beginning in September 1942, an Allied force (consisting mainly of Australian troops and the US 32nd Infantry Division) pushed the advancing Japanese back over the formidable Owen Stanley Mountains to strong fortifications near Buna and Gona. Within a few months, the Allied offensive — due mainly to inadequate training, disease, and insufficient artillery and logistical support — ground to a standstill.
After correcting these deficiencies and improving morale, the Allied offensive again kicked off on 20 November 1942. After fierce fighting against a determined foe, the Australians stormed Gona on 9 December 1942. Buna was more heavily defended, and after reinforcement by the US 41st Infantry Division, the Allies fought yard-by-yard through dense jungles and malarial swamps before finally overpowering the stalwart Japanese defenders and capturing Buna on 22 January 1943.
Author Harry Gailey (history professor emeritus at San Jose State University) rightly emphasizes the leadership and actions at the battalion level and below in achieving battlefield success. He also chronicles and evaluates the decisions of MacArthur and other senior officers, showing that MacArthur was not, at least in this campaign, the brilliant strategist many thought him to be. Political and logistical difficulties of the campaign were compounded by MacArthur, far removed from the action, “underestimating his enemy and not realizing the actual combat conditions facing his forces.”
The bloody action at Buna — in which the Allies lost over 8,000 soldiers killed and wounded, the Japanese some 7,000 combat deaths, and the Americans alone almost 14,000 men incapacitated by disease — was overshadowed by the concurrent operations at Guadalcanal. The triumphant operation at Buna, as recounted in this superbly researched and well-written study, was important in proving that Allied troops could defeat the hitherto invincible Japanese in the jungle. “The ultimate victory,” the author concludes correctly, “depended not on brilliant generalship but on the courage and dogged determination of thousands of tired and sick troops who gave the Allies their first victory and paved the way for all subsequent successful actions in New Guinea.”