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  • New Guinea Blockade

    Following their loss of Buna and Gona during the Papuan campaign, the enemy in New Guinea attempted to reinforce Lae on the Huon Gulf, but failed. On March 1, 1943, a B-24 spotted an enemy naval convoy and in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea that followed, planes of the 5th Air Force and the Royal

  • Solomon Islands

    The Allied defensive line in the Pacific was threatened at another point in the summer of 1942. The Japanese had moved into the lower Solomon Islands and were rushing to complete an airfield on Guadalcanal from which they could threaten the lifeline between Hawaii and Australia. On Aug. 7, 1942,

  • Combat Pacific

    For six months following the Pearl Harbor disaster, the outnumbered and ill-supplied Allied forces in the Pacific could do little more than attempt to delay the Japanese advance. Australia was a key stronghold for the buildup of Allied forces, but in early 1942 the last Allied outpost north of

  • Papua

    In July 1942 enemy troops on the Papuan peninsula on the northeast coast of New Guinea began an advance across the Owen Stanley Mountains against Port Moresby. Exhausted Australian ground forces, reinforced by troops flown to the scene, halted the enemy less than 30 miles from Port Moresby and then

  • Makeshift Uniform

    This mannequin depicts some of the makeshift characteristics of the USAAF personnel fighting on the ground. He is wearing a mismatched uniform that is a combination of a khaki service shirt and the more durable blue denim work pants. Others went into combat wearing work or flying coveralls or their

  • Service and Sacrifice: Master Sergeant Charles B. Causey

    When the Japanese attacked the Philippines, Causey was the flight line maintenance chief of the 20th Air Base Group at Nichols Field. Causey survived the Battle of Bataan, an attack from a guard on the Death March, and three years in a prison camp before being loaded onto a hell ship.For two weeks,

  • Service and Sacrifice: Chaplain Robert Preston Taylor

    Chaplain Taylor was awarded a Silver Star for his bravery in Bataan for assisting with the evacuation of wounded from the front lines while under heavy fire before the surrender. On the Death March, Taylor was beaten and tortured during the March for helping others. While at a prison camp in

  • The Aftermath: Prison Camps and Hell Ships

    Due to Japan’s inhumane treatment of the POWs, as many as 11,000 died on the Death March. And yet, the survivors’ suffering was not over – more than 20,000 POWs died in the first two months of imprisonment at Camp O'Donnell. Thousands more died of malnourishment, disease, exhaustion, physical abuse,

  • Bataan Death March: Japanese Brutality

    The Bataan Death March began on April 10, 1942, when the Japanese gathered an estimated 78,000 prisoners (12,000 US and 66,000 Filipino) to march up the east coast of Bataan. The POWs were given no indication of how far or how long they would need to march through the intense tropical heat.  The

  • The Last Days on Bataan

    On December 8, 1941, the Japanese destroyed two-thirds of the American aircraft in a surprise attack on Luzon. The island was home to both the Filipino capital city of Manila and headquarters of United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). Within weeks, the Japanese invaded the island on