A Hopeless Situation: The Tidal Wave Makes Landfall
While Japan’s westward thrust arrived at its target already beaten and bloody, the eastern strike force was having a merry time. Over the course of their 55 hour long journey over from Truk they had scarcely seen so much as the distant silhouette of a submarine, though there had been a number of false alarms.
On the morning of December 28th the troop ships carrying a brigade of men from the 16th Division entered the harbour of Rabul. As expected, the ghost town was completely undefended. The soldiers disembarked and secured the heights of the volcanic caldera surrounding the town as technicians surveyed and assessed what would need to be done to establish the port as a forward base.
It was more than just good planning on Japan’s part that the site they picked would be undefended, the entire Bismarck Archipelago was garrisoned by a single battalion. Even if Rabul was officially the capital of New Guinea Territory, there weren’t men to spare garrisoning its ruins.
Defences in New Guinea proper were better. As Australian territory the Government of Australia was able to deploy the Militia to defend the colony. As formations that had existed prior to the war there shouldn’t have been too much that needed to be done to stand up the militia divisions. However, the introduction of conscription for militia service meant that the prewar cadres of trained soldiers had been diluted with green troops in the months following the initial attack on Hong Kong. Additionally, the militia had already been somewhat under provisioned with modern equipment, and now was facing alarming shortages. Still, a well equipped brigade of pre-war personnel was assembled for the defence of eastern Papua. It was hoped that this would be enough to halt any Japanese force, as it had been anticipated that the Japanese would focus their thrust towards Singapore. The Australians were in for a rude Christmas Eve shock when news came in that the Far East Combined Bureau had decoded messages indicating that the Japanese were dividing their attention evenly between the British possessions on either side of the Dutch East Indies.
Australia was still scrambling to get more soldiers over when Lae came under aerial attack on the 29th. Similarly to what had went down on Borneo the night prior, a single brigade simply couldn’t hold the massive exposed coastline against a determined landing party. The Australian force’s commander, decorated WWI veteran Gordon Bennett, recognized that that wasn’t needed. Lae was flanked to the north and south by large rivers, only one of which was crossed by a bridge, a single bridge.
The Japanese may have expected that their enemy would wither away under sustained air attack, naval bombardment, and showers of mortars, and it did, but slower than may have been expected. Lae was a day one objective, yet it ended up falling only the fourth day and, due to the lack of an overall commander,[1] isolated pockets in the town persisted in their resistance through to day six.
Arrival of Japanese equipment after the landing
Momentum Broken: The Rats Resist The Rising Sun
The Japanese intention had been to storm Lae then swing around by sea to capture Port Moresby. However, the holdup at Lae gave the INJ enough time to find out how the western operation had gone. Accordingly orders were received that the fleet elements were to be stripped out from the eastern operation so as to reassemble the combined fleet for another action against the British naval build up at Singapore.[2]
The sense of betrayal the IJA felt upon learning of this is perhaps best demonstrated by an incident on January 2nd, when a number of artillerymen are recorded to have been executed for the crime of firing their Type 90 field gun at the destroyer
Yamagumo. While that particular detail may seem extreme, it is worth considering that the IJN's decision would mean no air support for any landing operation at Port Moresby,[3] and without that it would be impossible for a brigade to capture and hold the city. Instead, a brigade of the 16th division would advance over land while the troop ships returned to Truk to retrieve the 21st Division, which would take a week.
While the Japanese feuded, Gordon Bennett claimed that his escape from Lae was justified on the grounds of having determined how to beat the Japanese and the need to pass on this information. Having relocated via the airfield at Bulolo, he intended to prove the value of his “war-deciding experience” amongst the mountains of the Owen-Stanley Range. He was going to stop the Japanese with a battalion of local volunteers and conscripts augmented by a hundred some-odd men who escaped with him from Lae.
Operating from the airfield at Kokoda Bennett’s force travelled light and engaged in acts of sabotage against forward elements of the Japanese force. In a number of skirmishes Bennett’s men bloodied the enemy and retreated before they could be counter attacked, and many had an almost eager anticipation for how he would defend his base at Kodoka. However, in late January he simply cratered the runway and withdrew without firing a shot.
Gordon Bennett at Kokoda
What would he do when he could retreat no further? Fortunately for him that was never a real concern, as Australia was taking no chances and had surged three militia divisions into Port Moresby. By early February Bennett’s tiny force was rotated out of combat to recuperate, and the IJA faced a far stronger force. Port Moresby was secured for the time being.
Australian infantry in the jungles of New Guinea
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[1] the man, the myth, the legend has “””heroically””” slipped out of Japan’s grasp iTTL too!
[2] the IJN has concluded that their loss during the Battle Off Borneo is down to them having failed to concentrate their forces, which honestly isn’t a bad assessment.
[3] the IJA would draft plans to acquire their own aircraft carriers after this incident.
A/N: Yes, it’s short, I really just wanted to get something out this weekend.
So, how is Mr. Bennett’s redemption arc going?
VOTE NOW ON YOUR PHONES!
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The situation in Europe is going to get complicated, yes the British are diverted but they are at war so rearmament is going to have to go into high gear, including providing new weapons for the army rather than focusing on the RAF as per OTL. Wondering what will happen if the Germans march into Prague as per OTL, will there still be a guarantee to Poland?