into the Pacific Ocean at Aitape on the northern coast of New Guinea."
"The river is 30 to I00 yards wide and if the river is not rising, can easily be
crossed by walking over rocks and sandbars strewn with dead trees and
brush while avoiding the occasional deep hole."
The Japanese built a new bridge to enable their assault on Port Moresby
after engineers from the Aussie 3rd Infantry blew the primary bridge
upstream two weeks ago.
Japanese pilots confident from their victory at the Battle of Coral Sea flew
scathing air support missions from the Aitape Air Base. The air strips had
come under increasing amounts of daytime air raids as the Americans learned
to dodge the wall of anti-aircraft fire the Japanese had set up in the Owen
Stanley mountain range. Frequently Zeros on their way back from a
strafing mission were taken by surprise and put down into the Jungle.
Pilots that were lucky managed to land in friendly territory tenaciously defended by experienced troops of the Japanese 18th Army.
Units from the U.S. 124th Infantry were pressing hard up the trail forcing the
Japanese into an aggressive retreat into the deep jungle, often defending
territory that had been their "rear area" hours before..
Despite valiant efforts and suicidal wave attacks, the Japanese were
eventually forced off of the island at a cost of over 10,000 dead..
Some text and information taken from the following sources:
http://www.kilroywashere.org/003-Pages/ ... llery.html
,.. but neat scenes anyway "grunt". ...