Battle of Milne Bay (1942): Japan's First Defeat on Land

The Battle of Milne Bay was fought between 25 August and 7 September 1942 at the eastern tip of Papua, then an Australian territory and now part of Papua New Guinea. Australian troops, backed by Royal Australian Air Force fighters and American engineers, defeated a Japanese naval landing force that had come to capture three new airfields. It is remembered as the first time in the Pacific War that a Japanese invasion force was clearly beaten on land and forced to withdraw.

Background

By mid-1942 Japan had swept through South-East Asia and was pressing towards Australia. Its seaborne attempt to take Port Moresby had been turned back at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, and in July Japanese troops began advancing overland across the Owen Stanley Range on the Kokoda Track.

Milne Bay, a long inlet at the very end of the New Guinea mainland, mattered because of its airfields. From June 1942 the Allies built airstrips there to cover the sea approaches to Port Moresby and to support operations further north. For the Japanese, capturing them would provide an air base on the flank of the Allied position in Papua and help their thrust towards Port Moresby.

Japanese planners badly underestimated the garrison. They believed only a few companies of infantry held the area, when in fact the Allies had assembled a force of roughly 9,000 men.

Forces and commanders

The Allied garrison, called Milne Force, was commanded by Major General Cyril Clowes. It included the militia battalions of the 7th Brigade under Brigadier John Field and the veteran Second Australian Imperial Force battalions of the 18th Brigade under Brigadier George Wootten, who had fought in North Africa. About 1,300 American personnel, mostly engineers and anti-aircraft troops, worked on the airfields. Two RAAF squadrons, Nos. 75 and 76, flew P-40 Kittyhawk fighters from the completed No. 1 Strip.

The Japanese force came mainly from the Special Naval Landing Forces, the naval infantry of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first wave of about 1,200 men under Commander Masajiro Hayashi was later reinforced, bringing the total landed to roughly 1,900–2,000. They brought two light tanks, which proved useful at first but soon bogged down in the mud.

The fighting

On the night of 25–26 August 1942 the Japanese landed on the northern shore of the bay, east of the Allied positions, after RAAF aircraft had attacked their barges and supply dumps. They advanced west along a narrow coastal strip between the sea and the jungle-covered mountains, moving mostly at night.

The terrain shaped everything. Heavy rain turned the single coast track into deep mud, and swamps and plantations limited movement. Near KB Mission, the Japanese pushed back the 61st Battalion and then mauled the 2/10th Battalion in confused night fighting on 27–28 August, using their tanks and well-practised infiltration tactics.

Their advance stopped at No. 3 Strip, an unfinished airfield whose open, cleared surface formed a natural killing ground. In the early hours of 31 August the Japanese made repeated charges across it and were driven back by Australian infantry and American machine-gunners, with heavy losses.

The Australians then counter-attacked. The 18th Brigade pushed east along the coast through early September, recovering KB Mission and fighting a series of sharp actions. On 4 September Corporal John French of the 2/9th Battalion attacked three Japanese machine-gun posts alone; he was killed and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Japanese commanders, aware that the landing had failed and that their main effort was now going to Guadalcanal, ordered an evacuation. Warships took off around 1,300 survivors on the nights of 4–5 and 5–6 September. Small groups left behind were hunted down in the following days.

Air power and atrocities

The two RAAF Kittyhawk squadrons played a large part. Flying from No. 1 Strip, often in poor weather, they strafed Japanese barges, supply dumps and troops along the coast. Squadron Leader Peter Turnbull of No. 76 Squadron was killed in action on 27 August, and the airstrip was later renamed Turnbull Field in his honour.

Advancing Australians found evidence that some captured soldiers and local Papuan civilians had been killed by Japanese troops. These discoveries, documented in official investigations, hardened attitudes among the Allied forces for the rest of the New Guinea campaign.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1942, June: Allied construction of airfields at Milne Bay begins.
• 1942, 25–26 August: Japanese naval infantry land on the north shore of the bay.
• 1942, 27–28 August: Night battle at KB Mission; the 2/10th Battalion is forced back.
• 1942, 31 August: Japanese assaults on No. 3 Strip are repulsed.
• 1942, 4 September: Corporal John French earns a posthumous Victoria Cross.
• 1942, 4–6 September: Japanese warships evacuate the survivors.
• 1942, 7 September: Organised Japanese resistance at Milne Bay is over.

Consequences

Milne Bay secured the eastern end of Papua for the Allies. Its airfields and harbour became an important base for later operations along the New Guinea coast, including the fighting at Buna and Gona at the end of 1942.

The battle also mattered for morale. It came at a low point, as Australian troops were still retreating on the Kokoda Track and US Marines were fighting for their foothold at Guadalcanal. News that a Japanese landing had been thrown back encouraged both Allied soldiers and civilians. British Field Marshal William Slim later wrote that Australian troops at Milne Bay were the first to break the belief that the Japanese army could not be beaten, and that the news had heartened his own men in Burma.

Myths and facts

It is sometimes said that Milne Bay was Japan’s first defeat on land anywhere in the war. Strictly, an earlier Japanese landing at Wake Island was repulsed in December 1941, though the island fell to a second attempt. Milne Bay is better described as the first decisive defeat of a Japanese invasion force on land.

Another common idea is that the battle was a straightforward rout. In reality the early fighting went badly for the Australians, and the Japanese came close to the airfields before the defence held at No. 3 Strip.

Why it matters

Milne Bay showed that Japanese forces could be stopped and defeated in jungle fighting. Together with Kokoda and Guadalcanal, it marked the point in late 1942 when the Japanese advance in the South-West Pacific ran out of momentum and the Allies began to take the initiative.