Skip to main content
  • dva.gov.au
  • anzaccentenary.gov.au

The Anzac Portal

Home
Home
  • Home
  • History
    • Conflicts
      • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
      • Australians on the Western Front
      • Australia and the Second World War
      • The Burma-Thailand Railway and Hellfire Pass
      • The Kokoda Track
      • Australian involvement in South-East Asian conflicts
      • The Korean War
      • Australia and the Vietnam War
    • Special features
      • Veterans' stories
      • Great War memories
      • Victoria Cross recipients
  • Education
    • Education
      • Year 9 History resources
      • Year 10 History resources
      • Anzac Day resources for primary schools
      • All education resources
    • Competitions
      • Anzac Day Schools' Awards
    • Curriculum units
    • Online activities
      • Coming Home: An investigation of the Armistice and Repatriation
      • Keeping the Peace: Investigating Australia's contribution to peacekeeping
  • Multimedia
    • Audio
    • Documents
    • Images
    • Publications
      • 1916—Fromelles and the Somme
      • 1917—Bapaume and Bullecourt
      • 1917—Ypres
      • 1918—Amiens to Hindenburg Line
      • 1918—Villers-Bretonneux to Le Hamel
      • A Bitter Fate—Australians In Malaya & Singapore
      • Ancestry—Stories of multicultural Anzacs
      • Audacity—Stories of heroic Australians in wartime
      • Australian Flying Corps
      • Australian Light Horse—Palestine 1916–1918
      • Bomber Command
      • Candour: Stories in the words of those who served 1914—18
      • Chinese Anzacs
      • Comradeship—Stories of friendship and recreation in wartime
      • Curiosity—Stories of those who report during wartime
      • Decision—Stories of Leadership in the Services
      • Devotion—Stories of Australia's Wartime Nurses
      • Forever Yours
      • Gallipoli
      • Greece and Crete
      • Home Front
      • Laden, Fevered, Starved—the POWs of Sandakan
      • Memories and Memorabilia
      • North Africa and Syria
      • North Beach Gallipoli 1915
      • Operation Jaywick
      • Resource—Stories of innovation in wartime
      • Royal Australian Navy
      • Royal Australian Navy in the Atlantic and Mediterranean
      • The sinking of the Centaur
      • United Kingdom
      • Valuing our veterans
      • World Wide Effort: Australia's Peacekeepers
    • Videos
  • Anzac Day Schools’ Awards Winners
  • Conduct an event
    • Multimedia
    • Resources
    • Sample Speeches
  • Resources
    • #1MS (1 Minute's Silence)
    • 3-nine-39 radio and video series
    • 60th Anniversary of the Korean War
    • 70th Anniversary Tobruk 1941
    • 70th Anniversary of the battles for Greece and Crete
    • 70th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign
    • 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin
    • 95th Anniversary of the landings on Gallipoli
    • ADSA 2019 Poster
    • Anzac Centenary School Link Program
    • Anzac Day Poster 2019
    • Anzac Day poster
    • Anzac Day poster
    • Australia and the Vietnam War
    • Australian Prisoners of War
    • Australian Service Nursing: Wartime snapshots No.25
    • Australian Women in War
    • Australians at War Film Archive
    • Australians in the Merchant Navy
    • Australians on the Western Front
    • Battle for Leyte Gulf October 1944
    • Centenary of the Flanders Offensive
    • Centenary of the Royal Australian Navy
    • Centenary of the Sinai–Palestine campaign
    • Centenary of the Somme
    • Commemorating Australian Forces in the Vietnam War
    • Commemorating Australian forces in the Korean War
    • Commemorating Australian forces in the Vietnam War 1962–1975
    • Commemorating Australian prisoners of war on the Burma–Thailand Railway
    • Commemorating the Centenary of the Gallipoli Landings
    • Commemorating the Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation
    • Commemorating the centenary of the Armistice: Wartime Snapshots No. 24
    • Commemorating the first convoy of Australian troops to the First World War
    • Commemorating the return of Australian forces from Afghanistan
    • Control
    • Discovering Anzacs Exhibition Tips and Tools (Learn Area)
    • Discovering Anzacs School and Community Toolkit (Learn Area)
    • Discovering Anzacs Video Tutorials and Timeline (Learn Area)
    • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
    • Great Debates: The Anzac Legend
    • Great Debates—Conscription
    • Here they come—A day to remember
    • INTERFET: History in Focus
    • INTERFET—International Forces for East Timor
    • Indigenous Service
    • Investigating Gallipoli
    • Kokoda: Exploring the Second World War campaign in Papua New Guinea
    • Korea—A Cold War conflict (1950–1953)
    • M is for Mates—Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep
    • Ode of Remembrance: Wartime Snapshots No.26
    • Reflections: Capturing Veterans' Stories
    • Remembering Them app—Education Activities
    • Remembrance Day Poster 2019
    • Remembrance Day Posters 2018
    • Remembrance day
    • Schooling, Service and the Great War (Primary Resource)
    • Schooling, Service and the Great War (Secondary Resource)
    • Symbols of Commemoration Cube Education Activities (Secondary)
    • Symbols of Commemoration Cube—Education Activities (Primary school resource)
    • The Flanders Poppy—A symbol of remembrance
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian Korean War Veterans
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian Vietnam War Veterans
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian World War 2 Veterans
    • The Sinking of HMAS Sydney
    • The War that Changed Us Education Activities
    • Their Spirit, Our History
    • Wartime snapshot #23—1918-2018: Centenary of the Final Campaigns
    • We Remember Anzac (Primary Resource)
    • We Remember Anzac (Secondary Resource)
    • We'll Meet Again
    • Women in War radio series
  • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
  • Australians on the Western Front
  • Australia and the Second World War
  • The Burma-Thailand Railway and Hellfire Pass
  • The Kokoda Track
  • Australian involvement in South-East Asian conflicts
  • The Korean War
  • Australia and the Vietnam War
  • Australia and the Second World War
  • Events
  • Resources
  • Australia and the Second World War
  • Events
    • Libya and the Siege of Tobruk 1941
      • Bardia
      • Remembering Jack
    • Greece and Crete April–May 1941
    • Syria and Lebanon June 1941
      • Frank Hurley
    • Japanese advance (December 1941–March 1942)
      • Invasion of Malaya
        • The 'maimed and bloodstained' group: Parit Sulong
        • Stick to your post
        • The RAAF in Malaya
      • Fall of Rabaul
        • Left to their fate...
        • A miserable scene
        • Hungry and ... cold
      • Fall of Singapore
        • Ordered to leave
        • The final hours...
        • Unconditional surrender
      • Fall of Ambon
        • Driver Doolan...
        • Massacred at Laha ...
        • A life nobly given forever remembered
      • Fall of Timor
        • 'Badly need boots, quinine, money and Tommy-gun ammunition'
        • 'Ted was the sort of boy who would do anything for his mates'
        • Men of Timor
      • Fall of Java
        • Qantas in Java
        • Blackburn VC
        • 'Perth and Yarra sunk during Java action'
      • The defence of Moresby
        • Lost...and found...and lost
        • SS Macdhui
        • The 'Moresby Microbes'
    • Australia under attack 1940–1945
      • Air raids
        • Broome
      • Sydney Harbour
      • Coastal menace
        • City of Rayville
    • Coral Sea, Kokoda and Milne Bay May–September 1942
      • The Battle of the Coral Sea
        • The RAN at the Battle of the Coral Sea
        • The carrier battle
      • Kokoda
        • Fuzzy wuzzy angels
        • Thank God for the Salvos
        • Track 'n teeth
        • Remembering Isurava
      • Milne Bay
        • Maiogura
        • Polly
    • El Alamein October–November 1942
      • Ali Baba and his 20,000 thieves
    • Little-known operations 1939–1945
      • POWs in Eritrea
      • Cutting cables
      • The far east
      • Parer's last reel
    • Beachhead Battles (Papua 1942–1943)
      • The Battle of the Beachheads
        • Ben's diary
        • Medics attacked
        • Starving
    • The Japanese retreat 1943–1944
      • Bloody ridges: Wau-Salamaua
        • 'Bull' Allen
        • 'A war of rain and blood' – Ivor Hele's New Guinea art
      • To Shaggy Ridge
        • The Boomerang
      • Huon Peninsula—Rats in New Guinea
      • Island hopping
    • War at sea 1939–1945
      • Ironbottom Sound
      • Kamikaze
        • The old war horse
      • Landings
      • Lost at sea
        • HMAS Sydney
        • HMAS Parramatta
        • HMAS Matafele
    • Air war Europe 1939–1945
      • Australians in Bomber Command
      • Coastal command
        • Bill Moore
      • Fighter command
    • Last battles
      • Jungle Island
      • Long green shore
        • Aitape-Wewak campaign – Indian POWs
      • In the shadows of Bougainville
      • Return to the Philippines
      • The landings at Borneo
        • Black magic
        • Wally Dyer
    • Victory (8 May 1945/15 August 1945)
      • Death camp
      • 'A' bomb
        • British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF)
      • Surrender
      • Coming home
      • War crimes
      • A family at war: the Lucas family
  • Resources
    • All in—The Australian homefront 1939–1945
      • Emergency: home defence
        • Yanks down under - 'Over-sexed, over-paid and over here'
      • From wool to wirraways
      • Living with war
        • More war work
      • Leaving home
      • Indigenous service
      • Aliens
        • Break out
        • The fox
      • A town at war
    • The Coastwatchers 1941–1945
      • Supply drops
      • Cornelius 'Con' Page
    • Australian Prisoners of War 1940–1945
      • The dixie
      • Gunner Cleary
        • The marches
      • Found
      • Forced marches

You are here

  • Home
  • History
  • Conflicts
  • Australia and the Second World War
  • Events
  • Last battles

In the shadows of Bougainville

An Australian soldier carries a cross hewn from rough forest timber to be placed over the grave of an Australian killed in action in the Tsimba area of Bougainville on 27 February 1945
An Australian soldier carries a cross hewn from rough forest timber to be placed over the grave of an Australian killed in action in the Tsimba area of Bougainville on 27 February 1945. [AWM 018176]

When a veteran of the Bougainville campaign, Peter Medcalf, sat down in the early 1980s to write his memoir of the campaign, he came up with the title War in the Shadows. It was a statement both on the type of fighting experienced on the island – jungle warfare in the shadowy half-light under dense jungle canopies – and the sense those taking part had of being ‘forgotten’.

Bougainville Island and the adjacent, smaller Buka Island form part of the Solomon Islands chain. They were the outermost islands of the Australian mandated territory of New Guinea. The Japanese invaded the two islands in early 1942 when fewer than 20 Australian troops and a couple of naval coastwatchers were stationed there. The soldiers withdrew inland to observe the enemy and later were evacuated, leaving the coastwatchers to continue reporting Japanese air and sea movements. Their radio messages warning of convoys and air raids helped the Americans achieve victory to the south-east at Guadalcanal. This battle was the start of the American ‘island hopping’ campaign recapturing a string of islands from the Japanese.

In November 1943, American forces landed at Torokina on the western side of Bougainville Island. Along with some New Zealand and Fijian troops, they established and defended a base there. The Americans intended only to secure this base, building airfields and supply depots, to support subsequent operations beyond the island. They were content to leave most of Bougainville and all of Buka Island in Japanese hands.

Allied air and sea superiority meant that the Japanese garrison, the 17th Army, effectively was cut off from the main Japanese forces. The Japanese could not get supplies in and had no air cover. Without resupply, they could not mount an effective attack on the American base at Torokina. Only once, in early 1944, was a major attack on the base launched. It failed. After that, Bougainville became a backwater of the war.

Laminated wooden board with an irregularly shaped piece of red-brown linoleum attached to it by small steel nails. The linoleum has been carved to form a linocut. In centre four large Japanese characters with a row of smaller characters on each side.
The inner section of the port (left hand) wing of a Beaufort bomber aircraft showing Japanese Kanji characters painted on the underside of the wing.
Copy of leaflet dropped over Japanese lines calling on them to surrender.
Japanese surrender envoy - Major Otsu and Superior Private Takeshita, who is holding a white flag and the Japanese flag, are met by Australian troops on the banks of the Mivo River.
Sergeant GF Palmer accompanying Japanese stretcher cases being evacuated to 17 Field Ambulance, Soraken, for medical treatment.
Japanese Naval troops on parade . Major H Brockway, a member of the Australian Surrender Party from HQ2 Corps, addressing the troops.

In the middle of 1944, there began a handover of responsibility for the base at Torokina to Australian forces. Rather than merely hold the enemy at bay, as the Americans had done, Australia’s political leaders and senior officers decided the Australian force would go on the offensive.

The Japanese were concentrated in three main areas. One force was positioned at Numa Numa on the north-east coast and had sent troops over the Numa Numa Trail across the island towards Torokina. To the south, a major garrison force was located at Buin, on the southern tip of the island, while in the north another large force occupied the Bonis Peninsula on the northern tip of Bougainville Island and also Buka Island. The Australians were to advance on all three locations. The Japanese commander ordered his forces to step up patrols and prepare to fight, but believed the Australians would not launch their attacks before January 1945.

Soldiers of the 42nd Battalion negotiate a deep section of swamp

Soldiers of the 42nd Battalion negotiate a deep section of swamp during a patrol towards enemy territory in January 1945. [AWM 078546]

In fact, the Australians were ready shortly after arriving. The commander of II Australian Corps, Lieutenant-General Stanley Savige, realised speed offered his force an element of surprise. He had under his command the 3rd Australian Division along with two independent infantry brigades, the 11th and 23rd Brigades, along with supporting troops. Air support was provided mostly by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, with Australian aircraft limited to some tactical reconnaissance, artillery spotter and transport aircraft.

General Savige launched a three-pronged attack against the Japanese in November 1944. He ordered the 7th Infantry Brigade to begin the advance over the mountains towards Numa Numa. The brigade met stiff resistance from the Japanese, with heavy fighting in the mountains around Pearl Ridge. The Japanese had a freshly reinforced infantry battalion with light artillery and mortar support – a formidable force for the Australians to overcome. It took some hard fighting around Pearl Ridge and Artillery Hill for the Australians to secure the heights in the centre of the mountainous range. From the highest peaks, they were able to look out at the sea on both sides of the island.

Private Jack Hall, a sniper in the 25th Battalion, takes aim at a Japanese sniper who was positioned in a tall tree overlooking the route of the battalion's advance in late December 1944.
Members of an Army air maintenance company push supplies out of a RAAF Dakota transport aircraft. Two crew steady the bundle at the doorway for two other crew members to push out the doorway using their legs.
Sappers of the 15th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers manhandle steel horm beams during the construction of a box girder bridge in April 1945.
A Matilda tank of the 2/4th Armoured Regiment crosses a ford over the Sindou River on the Buin Road
Private Les Fuller, 58th/58th Battalion, wounded by Japanese artillery south of the Hongorai River, enjoys a cuppa and chats with two friends, Corporal GT Mills and Private RA White, while waiting for evacuation to an advanced dressing station
A scene from the vocal 'A pretty girl is like a melody', during a concert staged by members of 7 Field ambulance
Trooper TE Yates and Lance-Corporal GW Wells, 2/8th Commando Squadron, eating fresh apples dropped to the unit by aircraft in June 1945.
Flight Lieutenant NC Sandford, RAAF, of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, shaking hands with local villagers
Corporal JH Rickards with his bride Private EM Townsend during their marriage in the chapel, 2/1 General Hospital
At sea off Buin, Bougainville, sailors of the corvette HMAS Lithgow watch from the gun deck the interrogation of a Japanese envoy during negotiations for the surrender of Japanese forces on Bougainville and Buka Islands
Captain John Excell, an Army air liaison officer attached to 5 Squadron RAAF, briefs Pilot Officer HT ‘Tiny’ Kidman and Flight Lieutenant Ian Curtis, with a map placed on the wing of a Boomerang aircraft

Meanwhile the 11th Infantry Brigade was sent north from Torokina. Its orders were to push back the Japanese and, if possible, force them into the interior of the island where they might be starved out. The advance went well until the end of January when the Japanese launched a heavy counter-attack near the Genga River. It took further hard fighting, with artillery support, to break the Japanese. The Australians then pushed on and by the end of April had secured the Soraken Peninsula, hemming the Japanese into a small area on the northern tip of the island. However, an attempt to insert a company of the 31st/51st Battalion behind the Japanese lines was disastrous. The men went ashore in landing craft but had be evacuated after 48 hours, rescued by landing craft crews under heavy fire, having lost 23 men killed and more than 100 wounded.

To the south, the Australian advance also went well. One battalion at a time attacked the Japanese and they made steady ground. In March and April 1945, however, the Japanese counter-attacked with a series of human wave attacks at Slater’s Knoll, about half-way towards Buin. In heavy fighting, and with the assistance of tanks and also air support, the Australians held their ground. On 22 March, Corporal Reg Rattey, 25th Battalion, became the first soldier from a militia battalion to be awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest decoration for valour – in action at Slater's Knoll.

Nearly 300 dead Japanese were found around Slater’s Knoll after the battle. Over the following weeks, the Australians pressed on towards Buin but were now under pressure to take the advance easy to reduce casualties to a bare minimum.

Pictured, is a Bren gun pit in the immediate left foreground where a lad is shown cleaning his weapon. There is a steep bank on the left of the picture, making a natural defence.

Life on Slater’s Knoll Harold Abbott, 1945 [Oil on canvas on plywood, 40.7 x 45.6 cm AWM ART23875]

For the rest of the war, the war on Bougainville was one of containment of the Japanese. However, there was still some hard fighting, particularly in the north, where the 23rd Infantry Brigade took over the Australian operations. In fact, on 24 July 1945, the last Army Victoria Cross of the war was won by 20-year-old Private Frank Partridge, 8th Battalion, when he dashed forward during a battle to knock out a Japanese bunker and then lead an attack against a second.

The campaign on Bougainville Island was one of the most costly land campaigns in the Pacific for Australia. It cost more than 500 lives and more than 1500 wounded. Many felt this cost in lives was unnecessary, for the campaign made no difference to the outcome of the war. All it achieved was to push back the Japanese into smaller areas of containment. It has for this reason remained one of the most controversial campaigns of the war.

Related content

Sister BA Embling, Australian Army Nursing Service, applies mercurochrome dye to the leg of Corporal OG O’Connor, 24th Battalion, during treatment for a skin ailment at the 109th Casualty Clearing Station.

Sister BA Embling, Australian Army Nursing Service, applies mercurochrome dye to the leg of Corporal OG O’Connor, 24th Battalion, during treatment for a skin ailment at the 109th Casualty Clearing Station.

[AWM 093179]

Map of Bougainville indicating Japanese enclaves

Map of Bougainville. [DVA]

  • Home
  • History
  • Education
  • Multimedia
  • Anzac Day Schools’ Awards Winners
  • Conduct an event
  • Resources
  • Site info
  • Research tips
  • Contact
  • Copyright
  • Events
  • Accessibility
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • Anzac Centenary program

Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to us on YouTube