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Ascending the Ladder of the Soloman Islands The Japanese were considerably shaken on September 4, 1943 when the Australian 9th Division of the New Guinea Force, now commanded by General Sir Thomas Blarney, landed east of the main base of Lae in the Huon Gulf. A day later the U.S. 503rd Parachute Regiment dropped at Nazdab, inland of Lae, thus completing the isola- tion of the garrison. The airborne “air- head” was swiftly reinforced by the Australian 7th Division, which was airlifted from Port Moresby. The Allied forces at Salamaua and Lae now attacked simultaneously, Salamaua falling on September 12 and Lae on September 16. While the Australian 9th Division advanced around the coast, the Australian 20th Brigade was shipped around to Katika, where it landed on September 22, cutting off the garrison of Finschhafen, which fell on October 2. After its capture of Lae, the Australian 7th Division had moved up the Markham river valley, inland of the Saruwaged and Finisterre ranges of mountains, and then crossed into the Ramu river valley as it made for Madang, which fell to the Australian 11th Division on April 1944 24. Overland advances and landings from the sea completed the isolation and

western end of New Britain. The 112th Cavalry Regiment made a diversionary landing at Arawe, on the south coast of New Britain on December 15, 1943, and 11 days later the 1st Marine Division came ashore at Cape Gloucester at the western tip of the island. The division quickly secured a beach-head with two airfields, after 1,000 Japanese had been killed in a hard, four-day battle. Halsey’s forces had also been active during this period as they began to move up the “ladder” of the Solomon Islands group. After a brief pause to rest and reorganize after their defeat of the Japanese on Guadalcanal, the Americans resumed with the capture of the Russell Islands, just to the north-west of Guadalcanal, by the 43rd Division on February 21, but this was only a preliminary move. The basic U.S. plan was now to bypass the main Japanese garrisons, concentrating instead on a series of outflanking movements to secure key air bases and so isolate the Japanese garrisons. This would avoid heavy losses and, it was hoped, neutralize the Japanese bases. The first major step up the ladder was New Georgia Island, where Japan’s main air bases in the Solomons were located. As an initial move, the island of Rendova, just off New Georgia, was

destruction of other Japanese garrisons on the Huon peninsula during the same period. Of the 10,000 Japanese troops in the area, half had been killed, the other half dispersed into the cruel jungle of the region. While the Australians were mopping up on the Huon peninsula, the U.S. 6th Army had secured a toehold on the

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