The landing at Saidor, codenamed Operation Michaelmas, was an Allied amphibious landing at Saidor, Papua New Guinea on 2 January 1944 as part of Operation Dexterity during World War II. In Allied hands, Saidor was a stepping stone towards Madang, the ultimate objective of General Douglas MacArthur's Huon Peninsula campaign. The capture of the airstrip at Saidor also allowed construction of an airbase to assist Allied air forces to conduct operations against Japanese bases at Wewak and Hollandia. But MacArthur's immediate objective was to cut off the 6,000 Imperial Japanese troops retreating from Sio in the face of the Australian advance from Finschhafen.
Following the landing at Saidor, the Japanese elected to retreat rather than fight, and withdrew over the foothills of the rugged Finisterre Range. For the Japanese soldiers involved, the march was a nightmare, as they struggled through the jungles, across the swollen rivers, and over cliffs and mountains. Men succumbed to fatigue, disease, starvation, drowning, and even exposure, the nights in the Finisterres being bitterly cold. Hampered by the rugged terrain, inclement weather, signal failures, misunderstandings, over-caution, and above all the resolute and resourceful Japanese, US troops were unable to prevent large numbers of the retreating Japanese from slipping past them.
After considerable construction effort in the face of wet weather, the airbase was completed and proved useful. Whereas the base at Nadzab was surrounded by mountains and was therefore unsuited for missions that had to take off after dark, there was no such problem at Saidor. During March 1944, B-24 Liberator bombers staged through Saidor for night attacks on Hollandia.
Background Fighting in the South West Pacific Area in late 1943 and early 1944 was dominated by General Douglas MacArthur's Operation Cartwheel, a series of operations directed at isolating and neutralising Rabaul, the main base of the Imperial Japanese forces in the South West Pacific Area. MacArthur's original Elkton III plan called for Australian troops to capture first Lae, then Finschhafen, and finally Madang with a combination of airborne and amphibious assaults. However, it was a long way from Finschhafen to Madang—. Thinking in terms of a shore-to-shore operation, which would be limited in radius of action to the distance that landing craft could sail in one night, the Commander of Allied Land Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey recommended in August 1943 that an intermediate objective be seized first. Saidor was chosen as it had accessible beaches, a harbour, and a pre-war airstrip, and it was allocated the codename "Michaelmas" by MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ). It was recognised that the capture of Saidor might make that of Madang unnecessary, as both could cover the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits, and both would provide airbases close to the Japanese base at Wewak. For the time being though, both were considered objectives.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, pp. 214–215
The Battle of Finschhafen prevented the early occupation of Saidor. The Japanese wrested back the initiative and threatened to derail MacArthur's strategy, but ultimately failed to dislodge the Australian 9th Division or prevent the occupation of the Finschhafen area. With the battle won, the 9th Division initiated a pursuit of Lieutenant General Hatazō Adachi's retreating Japanese Eighteenth Army on 5 December 1943.Dexter, The New Guinea Offensives, p. 714 Adachi was in a difficult and precarious position, attempting to conduct a fighting withdrawal with his inland right flank vulnerable to attack from the Australian 7th Division in the Ramu Valley and his seaward left flank open to amphibious assault.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, p. 295 That he had an opportunity to destroy Adachi's army was not lost on MacArthur, who decided on 10 December that Saidor should be seized on or about 7 January, provided that Operation Backhander, the landing at Cape Gloucester, was proceeding satisfactorily.GHQ G-3 Journal, 10 December 1943, NACP: RG407 Box 610 On 17 December, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, the commander of Alamo Force, received orders setting a target date for Saidor of 2 January 1944.Casey, Amphibian Engineer Operations, p. 201
Preparation Krueger selected the 32nd Infantry Division for the Saidor operation as it was at Goodenough Island but no longer required for the New Britain campaign. The assistant division commander, Brigadier General Clarence A. Martin, was appointed commander of Michaelmas Task Force, which was built around the 126th Infantry Regimental Combat Team.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, p. 296 The 126th Infantry Regiment had been rebuilt after the Battle of Buna–Gona and had received six weeks' amphibious training in Australia and a further three weeks' training at Milne Bay. Units assigned to the task force were at Goodenough Island, Milne Bay, Oro Bay, Lae, Finschhafen, Port Moresby, Kiriwina, Arawe, and Cape Cretin, and in Australia.
The mission of Michaelmas Task Force was to (1) seize the Saidor area; (2) establish facilities for a fighter group; (3) assist in the establishment of air forces in the area; (4) assist in the establishment of light naval forces in the area; and (5) construct minimal port and base facilities. Notably, it did not contain any explicit instruction to fight the Japanese.Report of Michaelmas Operation, pp. 1–2 Lieutenant General Frank Berryman's Australian II Corps would cooperate by exploitation along the coast, while the Australian 7th Division would contain Japanese forces in the Bogadjim area by fighting patrols.New Guinea Force Operational Instruction No. 108, 27 December 1943, GHQ G-3 Journal, 27 December 1943, NACP: RG407 Box 612
Maps were supplied by the Australian Survey Corps.Report of Michaelmas Operation, p. 1 There was insufficient time and opportunity for ground reconnaissance, so three beaches, codenamed Red, White, and Blue, on the west shore of Dekays Bay were chosen from aerial photographs.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, pp. 297–298 They proved to be "narrow, rocky and exposed to heavy seas".Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 389 The intelligence staff at GHQ in Brisbane believed that there were no more than 4,500 Japanese forward of Sio, and only 1,500 more between there and the Madang area. They estimated that if the Japanese decided to counter-attack at Saidor, they would take a week to bring up 3,000 men.GHQ G-3 Journal, 21 December 1943, NACP: RG407 Box 610 Accordingly, Martin elected to dispense with a preliminary aerial bombardment. Removing this requirement permitted a dawn landing.
The assault troops with their supplies and equipment had to be loaded on board the ships on 31 December 1943, just five days after the assault on Cape Gloucester.Barbey, MacArthur's Amphibious Navy, pp. 126–127 Rear Admiral Daniel E. Barbey's VII Amphibious Force allotted 6 Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs), 10 High speed transports (APDs) and 17 Landing Craft Infantry (LCIs).Report of Michaelmas Operation, p. 5 A last minute hitch developed on 30 December when it was discovered that only nine APDs would be available. New embarkation tables were drawn up, shifting personnel not required in the assault waves to LCIs, and the landing schedule was revised in the light of the reduced number of landing craft.Report of Michaelmas Operation, p. 7
The difficulty of simultaneously supplying operations at Saidor, Arawe, Long Island, and Cape Gloucester was sufficiently daunting for Krueger to request a postponement of the Saidor operation;Holzimmer, General Walter Krueger, pp. 122–123 but the commander of the Allied Naval Forces and the United States Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid assured MacArthur that enough supplies would be delivered, and MacArthur overruled Krueger.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, p. 299 "I am most anxious that if humanly possible this operation take place as scheduled," MacArthur informed him, "Its capture will have a vital strategic effect which will be lost if materially postponed."James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol II, p. 346
Operations
Landing
The ships and landing craft were escorted by the destroyers , , , , , , and .Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 390 The force arrived at Dekays Bay before dawn on 2 January 1944 to find the shore obscured by low hanging clouds and drizzling rain. Admiral Barbey postponed H-Hour from 06:50 to 07:05 to provide more light for the naval bombardment, and then to 07:25 to allow the landing craft more time to form up. The destroyers fired 1,725 5-inch rounds, while rocket-equipped LCIs fired 624 4.5-inch rockets. There was no concurrent aerial bombardment, but Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators, B-25 Mitchells and A-20 Havocs bombed Saidor airstrip later that morning.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, p. 300
The first wave reached the shore at about 07:30. The first four waves of Landing Craft, Personnel (Ramped) (LCP(R)) from the APDs—arrived over the next 15 minutes. Each of the six LSTs in the assault towed a Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) of the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade; two carried bulldozers, two carried rocket equipped DUKWs, and two carried spare diesel fuel. The LCMs beached shortly before 08:30 and the LSTs soon after. The Shore Battalion, 542nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment laid Australian Reinforcing Company (ARC) mesh to provide a roadway across the beach for vehicles.Casey, Amphibian Engineer Operations, pp. 205–206
All six LSTs were unloaded by 11:45.Casey, Amphibian Engineer Operations, p. 209 There was little opposition. Eleven Japanese soldiers were killed by the naval bombardment or assault troops. Perhaps as many as 150 transient Japanese troops were in the Saidor area, all of whom fled into the interior. American casualties on the day of the landing came to one soldier killed and five wounded, and two sailors drowned. Nine Japanese Nakajima Ki-49 (Helen) aircraft, escorted by up to twenty A6M Zero (Zeke) and Kawasaki Ki-61 (Tony) fighters bombed the beach area at 1630. There were three more air raids during the night,Craven and Cate, Guadalcanal to Saipan, p. 348 and 49 over the course of the month, but most were small.Report of Michaelmas Operation, p. 16
MacArthur announced the landing in his communiqué the next day:
Japanese response
Since October 1943, the Japanese strategy had been to conduct a fighting withdrawal in the face of MacArthur's advance that would "trade position, to the end that the enemy offensive will be crushed as far forward as possible under the accumulation of losses".Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years, p. 552 At General Hitoshi Imamura's Japanese Eighth Area Army headquarters at Rabaul, the staff debated whether the 20th and 51st Divisions should attack Saidor or slip past it and join up with the rest of the Eighteenth Army at Wewak.Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul, p. 303 In view of the poor condition of the 20th and 51st Divisions, Imamura relieved the Eighteenth Army of responsibility for the Sio area and ordered Adachi to withdraw to Madang.Reports of General MacArthur, Volume II, Part I, pp. 240–241