Nightmare Island

“Artillery, machine gun fire, and mortars plastered our troops. The forward battalion was cut off by an invisible, deadly wall of steel and lead.” –Colonel Riegelman of the US 162nd Infantry Regiment account of the first day’s fighting on Biak.

The invasion of Biak island was the culmination of General MacArthur’s New Guinea campaign that began nearly a year earlier with Operation Cartwheel and the reduction and bypassing of the Japanese fortifications at Rabaul and Truk. MacArthur’s campaign had earlier stumbled out of the gate, with bloody battles at Buna and Sanananda along the Northeastern coast of New Guinea in late 1942 and early 1943. Shocked at the butcher’s bill run-up in those fights, MacArthur initiated an “island hopping” campaign that bypassed Japanese strongholds and not attacking the dug-in defenders head-on. From mid-1943 to early 1944 the US and Australian forces outmaneuvered their Japanese opponents, reducing and cutting the supply lines to the massive defensive works of Rabaul and Truk. This trapped thousands of badly needed Japanese defenders who would spend the rest of the war amid growing squalor and mounting privation. However, a risk run with each island “hop” by the US would be if the Japanese navy and air forces mounted a sustained counter-attack that would cut-off the American spearhead. Such an operation by the enemy could turn the tables and change MacArthur’s bold gambit into a costly defeat.

By early 1944 General MacArthur feared the upcoming US Navy offensive to take the Marianas to the north could lead to a strategic switch in offensive operations that would jeopardize his ambition and promise to retake the Philippines (as well as taking away the spotlight his operations commanded to this point in the war). In early 1944 MacArthur proposed the capture of Biak Island to not only end the New Guinea campaign, but also to provide a forward base of operations for his planned return to the Philippine archipelago. He also argued his attack and capture of Biak would provide valuable protection and early warning along the navy’s “southern flank” in the Marianas, giving a base for operations against any moves by Japanese naval and air units based in and around Borneo.

The plan to take Biak island was accepted over the objections of the US Navy as only a handful of ships could be spared from the Marianas offensive to support the Army’s attack. Expecting only light opposition two regiments of the US 41st Infantry Division landed on May 27th. After a relatively easy landing the GIs encountered fierce opposition by the veteran Japanese 36th Infantry Division, supported by garrison troops and tanks. Things for the Americans quickly went from bad to worse. Perhaps you can do as well or better?