MACARTHUR FACTOR IN PACIFIC

Since becoming involved in the study of the Kokoda campaign

over recent years, I have found there is a puzzle that surrounds

it all. The questions asked do not appear in any military history

record. But the questions still remain answered perhaps thanks

partly to the Official Secrets Act.

We have to look at the broad picture of world history to place

the Kokoda campaign in context. In 20 years before the Pacific

war, there were momentous events in Europe.

There was the Russian Revolution after which Josef Stalin became

dictator of party /state after death of Lenin in 1924. He espoused

a world socialist revolution, causing deep paranoia in the western

world.

Then there was a rise of national socialism with dictator Adolf Hitler.

Spurred on by the great depression of 1929-30, he sent troops out

into European nations, having first secured his supplies of coal, oil

and iron.

Then in the 1930s, there was the Japanese invasion of China for coal,

iron and oil amid a slowly rising civil war between the forces of Chiang

Kai shek and Mao Tse tung.

Then the Japanese burst out from 1942 and an allied oil blockade with

the bombing of Pearl Harbour and sinking of British ships Repulse and

Prince of Wales off the Malayan coast.

Americans entered the Pacific war with a vengeance while still fighting

the Germans in Europe. In the background was the rise of Stalin and

Mao Tse tung. These were next agenda items after the end of World

War 2.

America moved quickly in the Pacific. Only months after Pearl Harbour,

the Battle of the Coral Sea did massive damage to the Japanese military

machine.

Paul Ham writes that this was the first over-the-horizon naval battle ever

fought. As well he writes that had the American fighter aircraft ventured

further over the horizon they would have come across troop ships that

carried the Japanese South Seas Regiment, equivalent to a division of

allied troops.

It would have been a massive convoy of 8000 troops, 500 horses with

all equipment on route to Rabaul. But the ships were not seen by the

Americans so we may believe.

Curiouser and curiouser, Americans did not attack Rabaul in force. They

planned to construct an airfield complex at Dobuduru on the north coast

near Popondetta. This had been reconnoitred in July 1942, only one month

before the Japanese armada landed on the north coast.

We read reports the armada was attacked by a small number of American

aircraft. The Japanese advance could have been halted in the sea by a large

American attacking force. But it was not. Were the ships and aircraft not

available?

Did MacArthur know a Japanese invasion force was imminent even before

the 39^th battalion left Port Moresby? Was he seeking to draw the AIF into

battle? Or did he think that the Japanese would remain on the north coast?

Murphy’s Law says that if there is a track to a capital city, the enemy will

use it.

If there was no danger to Australia, why was there such hostility between

the Australian Prime Minister Curtin and Churchill about the AIF in the

European theatre of war? Was MacArthur pushing for the return of the

AIF behind the scenes?

If Japanese had not moved into New Guinea with the South Seas regiment

threatening Port Moresby, the AIF may have ended up on the Australian

mainland and left any fighting to the Americans. Or fighting Americans.

A major role of MacArthur was to keep Australian and American troops

apart. Already there was deep animosity between AIF troops and the

Americans thanks to the pamphlet drops in the Western Desert from the

Italian air force mocking Australians for being in the European theatre

while their wives and girl friends were in the arms of Americans.

There was a saying in the AIF that American soldiers were “over-sexed,

over-paid and over-here”. There was a quite vicious riot in Creek Street
Brisbane and a hushed up shoot-out between American and Australian

troops traveling in trains in opposite directions.

The Americans and Australians were kept separate in Port Moresby to

reduce any chance of fighting between countries that were allies. They

even camped outside Port Moresby and walked separate tracks up to
Buna-Gona.

Or was MacArthur seeking to allow the Japanese to divert themselves

into the South Pacific without ships. They certainly had commandeered

all airstrips for their fighter aircraft. That was not enough to move troops.

Surely, McArthur supreme commander and army general was not more

concerned with blooding the army rather than let the Japanese troops be

destroyed by the navy. And bringing Australian troops into the war.

But regardless of what Australians thought, the South Pacific was a dead

end particularly with much of the Japanese navy destroyed. Americans

were in the driving seat.

There is a theory that Macarthur had metaphorically ignored the Japanese

by putting his telescope up to his blind eye. This was the result of discipline

of the arrangement between the British and Americans in using the Enigma

code against the Germans and Japanese.

We are not to know that the Battle of the Coral Sea may have found the

Americans too much in the right place at the right time for the British

seeking to protect their access to Enigma.

The Americans had broken the Japanese naval code. They were obviously

very much in the right place at the right time in the ambush of the Battle of

Midway and pushing their luck that the Japanese would not realize.

The later ambush of Admiral Yamamoto over Bougainville caused problems

between the British and Americans with the obvious premeditated ambush

of his aircraft.

So the Americans may have been playing games with the Japanese. They

were checking out the Dobuduru airstrip complex site apparently oblivious

to the invasion force about to leave Rabaul.

Macarthur had ordered the deployment of the Australian 39^th battalion

to move to the north coast in support of airfield defence.

But when the Japanese started moving down the Kokoda track, MacArthur

did not want them to reach Port Moresby. Occupation of Port Moresby

would have been a wild card that required deployment of American troops.

MacArthur put pressure on Blamey.

But Macarthur was more interested in the island hopping that he planned

than to worry about Americans fighting Japanese ground troops in New

Guinea. With the end of the battle of Buna-Gona-Sanananda, Dobuduru

airsfield was under way, a massive complex of intersecting airstrips.

The American troops took over 50 days to march parallel to and 50 kms

from Kokoda track. Modern trekkers could be faster than that. American

troops may have been there mainly for Dobuduru airfield defence rather

than fighting the Japanese. They held back. But many were inexperienced

national guardsmen.

Americans were soon off island hopping. Major destruction of Japanese

troops occurred on Biak Island when over 4000 were killed in one cave

complex. The Americans fulfilled MacArthur’s promise to return to the

Philippines.

Finschhafen become a major staging point for troops preparing for island

hopping. There were  500,000 troops who passed through Finschhafen.

Concrete hard standing of hundreds of Nissan huts will remain until the

end of the world.

The might of the Japanese air force was destroyed in the Mariana turkey

shoot. Experienced pilots from Pearl Harbour were killed forcing training

of Kamakazi pilots who learned only how to take off. The naval pathway

to the South Pacific had been further destroyed at Leyte Gulf and Truk.

A Discovery Channel reported the Americans dropped the atomic bombs

on Nagasaki and Hiroshima when intelligence reports indicated that there

were 9 Japanese divisions on Kyushu Island.

With the surrender of the Japanese in Tokyo Harbour on the USS Missouri,

MacArthur got on with setting up the power balance against the Communist

Chinese who were to take over China in 1949. Stalin was to remain alive

until 1953 and supporting the Chinese communists.

The American-Japanese lovers’ quarrel was over. Under the Marshall

Plan, Japanese industry was rebuilt so that a power balance was set up

against China.

The affair started when Perry opened Japan to the west in the 1850s. But

the Americans and world were not to foresee the rise of samurai militarism,

combined with the great depression and western indifference.

For decades, Americans brought Japanese across to work on pineapple

plantations of Hawaii. Two battalions of American-Japanese fought with

valor in the European theatre of war.

There was a message of condolence sent from a PNG organization to the
kind and gentle Japanese people suffering from the earthquake.

Two years ago, speaker at the ANZAC dawn service in Bomana near

 Port Moresby spoke of men who gave their lives from PNG, Australia,

America and Japan. Times change.

Military history talks on the Kokoda Track need not cover these issues.

There is always a trekker or two who have a deeper understanding of the

world situation in 1942 and wish to discuss these matters while sitting on

a log during trek breaks along the track.

Australia owes much to the Americans from 1942.