The Battle of Milne Bay

THE BATTLE OF MILNE BAY

Nicholas Anderson

Big Sky Publishing, 2018, 215pp, $19.95

ISBN 978-1-925675-67-2

Nicholas Anderson has written an informative history of the Battle of Milne Bay, providing a companion to his earlier work on the Papuan campaigns, To Kokoda. This book, part of the Australian Army Campaign Series, is academically rigorous, but published in a highly readable style.

Few readers are likely to be aware that the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) that formed the Milne Bay invasion force were not elite units. They comprised sailors trained to conduct amphibious landings and then garrison the areas captured. They did not have the same level of training as the US marines. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) units that might have been expected to conduct, or follow up, the landing were already engaged either in the Kokoda campaign or on Guadalcanal. As Anderson details in To Kokoda, Guadalcanal was a magnet drawing forces away from Papua.

The battle started poorly for both sides. Poor intelligence gathering and deficient leadership and staff work were major factors contributing to the Japanese defeat. The SNLF landed in the wrong position, further from the airfields than intended, while the RAAF stopped some Japanese, who were stranded on Goodenough Island when their landing barges were destroyed. Finally, the barges that arrived in Milne Bay were also destroyed by air strikes soon after the landing, together with much of the supplies they carried.

Major General Cyril Clowes, who took command of the Milne Bay base in only late August, made some planning errors, albeit often under pressure from higher headquarters. The worst was that the first units engaged, not expecting to meet Japanese tanks, did not take any anti-tank weapons forward. Also, the position chosen for their initial stand at KB Mission was badly chosen, leading to a bloody nose for the 61st Battalion. The two Japanese light tanks present contributed significantly to this defeat.

The 2/10th Battalion was also beaten at KB Mission, again with a contribution from the tanks. It withdrew in some disorder, suffered a second defeat at Motieau Creek, and withdrew to the base area, taking no further part in the battle. The lack of anti-tank weapons had proved disastrous for the first two Australian battalions engaged.

The Japanese advanced to Number 3 (later Turnbull) Strip without the tanks, which became bogged and were later destroyed by a patrol from the 25th Battalion.  The Japanese were finally stopped by two militia battalions, artillery, and machine guns operated by US engineers and anti-aircraft troops, using Number 3 Strip as a killing ground.

The counter attack against the Japanese remnants was led by the 2/12th Battalion, which had a major success when survivors of the attack on Number 3 Strip blundered past its night position at Gama River and suffered heavy casualties. The 2/9th Battalion later completed ‘mopping up’ the northern shore of Milne Bay, with most surviving Japanese evacuated by sea. An interesting detail was the use of fuses from 25-pounder ammunition in shells for the 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns to increase the range of artillery support.

The final element of the Battle of Milne Bay was clearance of the Japanese stranded before the battle on Goodenough Island. This did not go well, as the Japanese had time to prepare defences that stymied the 2/12th Battalion, allowing evacuation of the survivors.

The major problem for the Japanese was overstretch as they attempted to carry out simultaneous operations at Guadalcanal, Milne Bay and Kokoda. Anderson considers that Milne Bay was more important than Kokoda because a major land attack across the Owen Stanleys was not practicable, while Japanese possession of the airfields at Milne Bay could have made a seaborne approach to Port Moresby possible. This is an interesting perspective, but moot, as the Japanese had shifted their main effort to Guadalcanal.

Anderson deals fairly with the pressures on senior officers during the campaign. Clowes came under indirect pressure from Generals MacArthur and Blamey to speed up the battle, and his plans were interrupted by several ‘flap messages’, causing changes to operations already being implemented. The impression gained, fairly or unfairly, that he was insufficiently informative in his reports and ‘sticky’ in pressing the Japanese ensured that he did not receive another operational command. Clowes’ brigadiers both came under pressure to speed up their operations. However, both retained their commands, and George Wootten later took command of the 9th Division.

While Anderson bemoans the general lack of knowledge of the battle in Australia, I suspect that this is at least in part a function of the geographical origin of the units that fought there. As a Queenslander, I was quite familiar with the battle, but four and a half of the infantry battalions there were from Queensland (including the militia unit from my home town, Toowoomba’s 25th Battalion), one from South Australia, and a half battalion from Tasmania. New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia had a minimal number of veterans of the battle. Those states, however, had many veterans of the contemporaneous Kokoda Campaign, drawing their attention there.

This is a worthwhile addition to your library. Is it too much to hope that Anderson will follow it with a book on the battles for the Papuan beachheads in late 1942-early 1943?

JOHN DONOVAN