Remembering the war in New Guinea
Buna–Gona–Sanananda 1942–43 (Photographs)
Module name: Campaign history (All groups perspective)
This page was contributed by Mr Damien Fenton (Australian War Memorial)

AWM 013964 (Australian War Memorial) Australian soldiers examine a destroyed Japanese machine gun nest, Buna, 28 December 1942. Solidly constructed from coconut logs and well camouflaged this bunker was typical of the strongholds that delayed and frustrated the Allied advance for some eight weeks. The Japanese had spent four months fortifying their positions and the extent and effectiveness of their defences came as a rude shock to the attacking American and Australian troops.
AWM 013973 (Australian War Memorial) Gunners of the 1st Australian Mountain Battery fire their 3.7-inch mountain howitzer, Buna, December 1942. A two-howitzer strong section from this unit was attached to the American 128th Regiment for its initial attack on Buna in mid-November 1942. In fact, after the destruction of an American supply convoy by Japanese fighter-bombers on 16 November, these two howitzers were the only source of Allied artillery support in the area for the first week of operations.
AWM 127507 (Australian War Memorial) American troops of the 128th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division, move forward towards Buna. The 32nd Division had received no jungle training and was not yet ready for an operation as gruelling as the reduction of the Japanese defences around Buna and Sanananda turned out to be. MacArthur, infuriated and embarrassed by the 32nd Division’s poor performance given his earlier criticism of Australian militia units, sacked it’s commander, Major General Edwin Harding, midway through the battle.
AWM 014233 (Australian War Memorial) Battle-weary soldiers of the Australian 21st Brigade at rest after the successful capture of Gona on 9 December 1942. Gona was the first of the three Japanese strongholds to fall – but only after savage fighting that included a series of major Australian attacks that failed and a Japanese counterattack from the west that was in turn defeated. The 21st Brigade alone suffered 340 battle casualties in its first five days of operations there and the 25th Brigade, which it had relieved, lost almost 1,000 men, including those struck down with disease.
AWM 013952 (Australian War Memorial) An Australian soldier sprays the surrounding tree tops with automatic fire from his Bren gun, Buna, 28 December 1942. In addition to the formidable Japanese defences on the ground, the attacking Allied troops quickly learnt to cast a cautious eye skyward, as Japanese snipers often hid themselves in the tops of coconut trees.
AWM 14002 (Australian War Memorial) An Australian infantryman of the 2/12th Battalion warns the crew of an M3 Stuart light tank of a Japanese bunker to their right during the final assault on Buna, 2 January 1943. The tanks, in this case belonging to the Australian 2/6th Armoured Regiment, gave good support to the attacking infantry during the latter stages of the battle for Buna. The Japanese countered by building tank-traps and using their anti-aircraft guns as makeshift anti-tank guns.
AWM 014011 (Australian War Memorial) American soldiers of the 32nd Infantry Division shelter in dugouts they have carved from the rim of a water-filled shell crater, Buna, January 1943. The torrid coastal swamps that dominated the local terrain produced an epidemic of mosquito-borne malaria, dengue fever and other tropical ailments. Both sides suffered badly and few soldiers who survived the final campaign in Papua escaped without contracting one disease or another.
AWM 014233 (Australian War Memorial) An Australian mortar crew in action towards the end of the fighting around Sanananda, January 1943. The last of the Japanese beachheads to fall, Sanananda saw some of the most brutal and bloody fighting of the entire New Guinea campaign. For two months the Australians and Americans failed to bludgeon their way through the Japanese defences. Only after the evacuation of the garrison was ordered by the Japanese 18th Army’s commander, General ADACHI Hatazô, was Sanananda finally captured by the Allies.
AWM 014212 (Australian War Memorial) Soldiers of the Australian 2/7th Cavalry Regiment in their foxholes with weapons at the ready, Sanananda, January 1943. This unit took part in the desperate battles to break through the Japanese defences along the Sanananda Track during late December 1942 where battle casualties and sickness reduced it to a strength of less than 200 men. In this weakened state the cavalrymen were then employed on mopping-up operations behind the main Japanese perimeter as the noose closed in on the final Japanese positions around Sanananda itself.
AWM 014639 (Australian War Memorial) The unmistakable silhouette of the twin-engined Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter in flight, New Guinea, early 1943. These large and powerful aircraft had begun to replace the P-40 Kittyhawk in the fighter squadrons of the American Fifth Air Force from late 1942 onwards. They played a major part in ensuring that the Allies quickly achieved local air superiority over the Buna–Gona–Sanananda area.
AWM 030258/11 (Australian War Memorial) Gunners of the Australian 2/1st Field Regiment load another shell into their 25-pounder field gun, Sanananda, January 1943. By the final phases of the Allied advance on Sanananda the Australians had amassed at least a dozen 25-pounders and a smaller number of 4.5-inch howitzers to provide artillery support. To their disappointment however the swamps and the depth of the fortifications combined to blunt the effectiveness of artillery barrages on the Japanese positions.
AWM 014235 (Australian War Memorial) The body of a Japanese straggler is approached with caution by the American soldiers who shot him after he refused to surrender, Sanananda, 27 January 1943. The Japanese resistance was ferocious and unyielding throughout the fighting around Buna, Gona and Sanananda. Initially the Allies thought they faced no more than 4,000 exhausted survivors of the Japanese retreat from Kokoda – instead they found themselves up against 9,000 troops, most of whom were freshly arrived Japanese reinforcements.
AWM ART22167 (Australian War Memorial) Roy Hodgkinson, Second portable hospital, USA (Captain Carl Hammer, Sergeant Fred Gaspar and First Lieutenant F. Eldridge), 1942, charcoal with coloured crayons, 34 x 47.2 cm, Australian War Memorial ART22167.
AWM ART21702 (Australian War Memorial) Roy Hodkinson, Fragment of battlefield at Sanananda, New Guinea, 1943, coloured crayons, 33.2 x 46 cm, Australian War Memorial ART21702.
AWM ART27547 (Australian War Memorial) Geoffrey Mainwaring, Australian action at Buna, 1962, oil on canvas, 274 x 137 cm, Australian War Memorial ART27547.