Amphibious Warfare - World War II
The Australian Army's commitment in the Second World War was similar to the first. Again, Australia raised a special force, the Second AIF, for service with British forces in France. Again, it was diverted to operations in the Middle East. It was not involved in Gallipoli-type amphibious operations, but in 1941, it was transported by ship to Greece and evacuated under trying circumstances from Greece and Crete by the Royal Navy.
In the defence of Australia in 1941 and 1942, the Australian Army deployed formations and units to forward locations such as Timor, Ambon, New Ireland and New Britain, but did not have the maritime and air resources to back them up. It was not until the Americans arrived that a proper maritime strategy for the defence of Australia and the subsequent counter-offensive could be contemplated.
The spirit of improvisation that prevailed during the early days of training is captured in Spearheads of Invasion, the wartime memoir of Lieutenant Commander W. N. Swann, RAN. Swann served in HMAS Westralia from early 1942, when it was converted from an Armed Merchant Cruiser to one of the RAN's three LSIs: HMA Ships Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia. These three ships were each capable of carrying a battalion of soldiers. Together they could transportan Australian Brigade Group or an American Regimental Combat Team, both formations consisting of approximately 5000 troops, making them important assets in the Allied war effort. The RAN's LSIs took part in seven of the key landing operations launched by American and Australian Forces in New Guinea, the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines.
MacArthur's campaign for the advance from New Guinea to the Philippines became based on a maritime strategy. In early 1943 the US Navy's Rear Admiral Daniel Barbey toot command of amphibious forces in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA). MacArthur had only a relatively small navy. Instead, his main striking force was his air force, based on jungle airstrips rather than on aircraft carriers. The role of the army was to seize and hold the areas for the airstrips and for the naval anchorages and bases. The role of the navy was to lift his forces forward to each new position; that is, the amphibious landings became a key part of MacArthur's strategy.
For much of the war, the SWPA was denied the shipping and manpower resources devoted to the European and Central Pacific theaters. In an effort to overcome these problems, General Douglas MacArthur and his staff developed a strategy that made maximum use of their limited air and sea power to avoid protracted land combat. When MacArthur's forces conducted landing operations, economy of force was a key element in planning. Amphibious operations in the SWPA were often used to bypass Japanese strong points and put troops ashore in areas that were only lightly held by the enemy. Captured areas were then rapidly developed as air bases and logistic bases. After a few weeks they would provide the necessary air cover and materiel support for the next amphibious leap along the northern coast of New Guinea, or later from island to island within the archipelago of the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia).
Thus the air and logistical build-up, not the destruction of the enemy, was the key purpose of these landings. This is not to say that the fighting was any less bitter or less difficult thanin other Pacific theaters, but there were no Tarawas or Iwo Jimas in the SWPA, mainly because MacArthur did not have the resources for assault landings on a lavish scale.
The amphibious landing at Lae and the airborne landing at Nadzab worked smoothly. However, command shortcomings became apparent in the Finschhafen operation which took place soon after. With the capture of Madang in April 1944, the Australian Army began to withdraw most of its units to Australia for rest and retraining, and the bulk of the fighting was taken over by the Americans.
There was one major difference between the New Guinea landings of 1943 and the Borneo landings of 1945. In the first case, the landings were an integral part of an overall military strategy which had been approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the second case there was no clear, agreed and consistent military strategy.
One Australian operation came close to disaster. This was the landing of a reinforced company of the 31st/51st Infantry Battalion at Porton Plantation in northern Bougainville in May 1945. The Japanese surrounded the beachhead, and the following evening three bullet-proof landing craft beached under intense fire to take off the survivors, one of the landing craft becoming stuck on a coral reef. Two days later sixty men, including wounded, were rescued. Had the Japanese been in greater force it could have been a complete disaster.
The extent and prevalence of inter-service cooperation in the SWPA was a necessary response to the unique problems imposed by the geography and climate of the theatre. Units of all the armed forces undertook long periods of training before participating in amphibious assaults. With greater experience came the realisation that the complexity of amphibious operations required the development of specialised units in all three services. From late 1944 onwards, the SWPA - particularly USN units and American ground forces - also enjoyed an increase in resources. This enabled MacArthur to intensify his campaign, and while the Americans pushed on towards the Philippines and Japan the Australians were left to fight their own campaign in New Guinea and the Netherlands East Indies.
Despite initial problems, under Barbey's able leadership the US and Australian forces soon overcame their differences and conducted 56 successful assault landings between late 1943 and the end of hostilities in 1945. In these operations, HMAS Manoora and the other RAN Landing Ships Infantry (LSI) formed part of the successs tory of inter-Allied cooperation.
From the first landing on Goodenough Island on 22 October 1942 to the landing at Balikpapan on 1 July 1945, there were 113 landings. In seventy-eight of these landings there were no casualties at all in the first 24 hours. When the Americans landed with four divisions abreast at Leyte on 20 October 1944, they had 247 casualties in the first 24 hours. In the first 24 hours at Lae, the Australians had 206 casualties, at Finschhafen, 120 casualties, and at Balikpapan, 96. By making good use of signals intelligence MacArthur generally made sure that he landed where the Japanese were absent.
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