This is a gripping account of one of the harshest and most overlooked theatres of the Pacific War. Military historian John Laffin described it as “arguably the most arduous fought by any Allied troops during World War II.”
About the Book
The campaign for New Guinea was one of the most brutal of World War II. After rapid victories in Singapore, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, it was here that the Japanese offensive in the Pacific was halted.
Allied and Japanese troops fought through festering swamps and sodden jungle in crushing heat and humidity. They battled not only each other, but also disease, exhaustion, crocodiles, venomous snakes, typhus-bearing mites, leeches, and countless other tropical dangers.
By the end of the campaign, more than 100,000 Japanese troops were dead, from a combination of fierce fighting, disease, starvation, and exhaustion.
John Vader, a veteran Spitfire pilot of the South-West Pacific campaign and later a military historian, recounts the central phase of the struggle for New Guinea. Covering the period between the battles of the Coral Sea and the Bismarck Sea, he traces the desperate fighting that checked the Japanese advance.
With vivid detail, Vader describes how ill-equipped but determined Australian and American forces held the line along the Kokoda Track. He covers the defence of Milne Bay and the desperate fighting at Buna–Gona and Wau.
Vader also explores the tensions between Allied commanders and frontline troops as jungle warfare bogged down operations and shattered plans.
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