World Battlefronts: Bougainville Team

The Army followed the Marines to Bougainville last week, seven days after the first landings. The commander and strength of the Army force were unannounced, but the bare, official accounts reflected smooth, effective coordination between the Army, the Marines and the seagoing Navy.

Combat and life on Bougainville were rugged; the Japs were on the island in force, frantically building new airfields and resisting every U.S. effort to widen the beachheads on Empress Augusta Bay. Said a Marine sergeant:

“You can’t even see an enemy ten feet away at times. The jungle is so thick that we don’t dare use mortars or grenades because we can’t loft them out of our own territory.

“Stretcher bearers carrying out casualties often have to wade waist-deep in muddy water. The jungle stinks with a dead, musty odor which is even worse in the forward areas where the bodies of the Japs lie buried.”

Strong carrier forces gave the big Jap base at Rabaul its second bombing: Army bombers also plastered a 10,000-ton warship and other vessels there (see cut). Said a Marine officer on Bougainville: “We owe a lot to the Air Force and Navy surface forces. We’d have been under the gun if they hadn’t knocked out the Japanese air power in this area and prevented enemy surface forces from reaching us.”