Papua New Guinea

The Air Transport Command: From Lend Lease To The Hump

By Sam McGowan

World War II was responsible for numerous technological advances, not the least of which was the establishment of the largest airline in history. Read more

Papua New Guinea

General Douglas MacArthur’s Navy

By Glenn Barnett

In November 1941, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet weighed anchor in Shanghai, China, for the last time. Alarmed by the growing hostility and aggressiveness of the Japanese, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the outnumbered and outgunned American vessels moved to the relative safety of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Read more

Papua New Guinea

The Bombing of Rabaul in November 1943

By Sam McGowan

In some historical circles, a mistaken impression has developed that the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 38 launched the aerial offensive on the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul, New Britain, that ultimately rendered the base useless. Read more

Papua New Guinea

WWII Planes: The Bell P-39 Airacobra “Peashooter”

by Sam McGowan

If there is an American combat airplane that has achieved an ill-deserved reputation, no doubt it would be the much-maligned Bell P-39 Airacobra, a tricycle landing gear single-engine fighter whose reputation was greatly overshadowed by the more famous, and of more recent design, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and North American P-51 Mustang. Read more

Papua New Guinea

A Good Samaritan

By Jon Diamond

The iconic photograph the Blinded Soldier, New Guinea taken on Christmas Day 1942, reveals a wounded and barefoot Australian soldier, Private George “Dick” Whittington of the 2/10th Battalion, being led down a path through a surrounding field of tall kunai grass to an Allied field hospital at Dobodura in Papua, the eastern third of the world’s second largest island, New Guinea. Read more

Papua New Guinea

The Buna Front: A Ghastly Nightmare

By Jon Diamond

Ask anyone who was there and they will tell you that Papua New Guinea, especially along the northern coast, was a tropical hell. Read more

Papua New Guinea

Australia’s Backyard Wars

By John Brown

In June 1943, with the war on the island of New Guinea in its last stages, a proposal was under discussion in Washington that the huge Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain be bypassed and “left to wither on the vine.” Read more

Papua New Guinea

The Battle Of Buna: Costly For Both Allies and Japanese

By Glenn Barnett

In March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the doomed Philippines by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to organize the defense of Australia. Read more

Papua New Guinea

George Kenney’s Air Force During The Pacific War

By Sam McGowan

Although the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the event that served to galvanize America to fight World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and his military advisers had pervasively decided that defeating the Japanese would be secondary to destroying the Nazi war machine in Europe. Read more