PART II–SANANANDA
Background of the Sanananda
Operation
WHILE the right wing of the Allied force in Papua was carrying out the Buna operation, the left wing was attacking Japanese positions defending Sanananda, a few miles west of the Girua River. From these two bases the enemy had started his advance against Port Moresby along trails which converged at Soputa. The Allied counter-offensive was compelled by lack of good lateral communications in the waterlogged coastal plain to follow these same trails and was consequently split into two separate and parallel operations.
The bulk of the troops employed against Buna were American; the majority of those in the Sanananda zone were Australian, but American troops played a part out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. From the start of the operation, elements of the U. S. 126th Infantry were attached to the Australian 7th Division, which was under Maj. Gen. George A. Vasey, Allied Commander on this front. At the end of December the 163d Infantry of the U. S. 41st Division began to arrive from Port Moresby. After the fall of Buna, units of the U.S. 127th Infantry moved up the coast to the Sanananda front, while the tanks and the Australian 18th Infantry Brigade came by way of Ango Corner. The present account sketches only those general outlines of the Sanananda operation which are required for an understanding of American participation.
Japanese defenses west of the Girua River were in many ways stronger than those at Buna. They constituted a deep beachhead, roughly triangular in shape, protecting Sanananda harbor. The apex of this triangle was 3 miles inland on the Soputa-Sanananda Road, the one good line of approach, and its base was anchored on strongpoints covering the coastal trail between Cape Killerton to the west and Tarakena to the east. Gona was a flank position to the northwest of the main stronghold and could be reached from Soputa by a trail west of the road.
A group of mutually supporting positions at the apex on the Soputa-Sanananda Road covered the junction with the road of a branch trail to Cape Killerton. A half mile to the north was another group of positions where a second trail branched off toward Cape Killerton, and a half mile still further north was a third group of positions. Each defensive position consisted of a single ring of bunkers similar to those found at Buna, connected by fire and communication trenches and thus constituting a perimeter. Many of these perimeters were flanked by swamps and all were well concealed in the dense jungle.
Within the fortified area were concentrated some 3,000 survivors of the unsuccessful attack on Port Moresby, together with reinforcements which arrived by sea. Two of these units which had been decimated in the retreat across the Owen Stanley Mountains could be identified only tentatively: the Kusonose Butai and the Yokoyama Engineers. A third was definitely established as the Yasawa Butai. It consisted of 3 battalions of the 41st Infantry; the 1st Battalion was stationed at Gona, while the 2d and 3d were on the Soputa-Sanananda Road near its junction with the Killerton trail. On 20 November about half of the enemy troops were in positions along the road north of Soputa while the rest were on the coast.
Reinforcements arrived during the first 2 weeks of December. A detachment of the Yamagata Brigade, numbering less than 1,000 and consisting of the Brigade Headquarters, the 3d Battalion of the 170th Infantry, and 1 battery of mountain artillery, landed north of Gona during the night of 1–2 December. A second detachment of the same brigade, also less than 1,000 in number, landed near the mouth of the Mambare River on the night of 12–13 December. The total enemy strength in the Sanananda area was therefore between four and five thousand, at least twice the strength of the Buna garrison.
The Sanananda operation was conducted at first by the Australian units which had pushed the Japanese back across the Owen Stanley Mountains. But these units were too exhausted and too few to crack the strong defensive position of the enemy. Even after reinforcement by fresh Australian and American units, the attack was stalemated until the fall of Buna permitted the transfer of further Allied forces to the Sanananda front early in January. Thereafter the attack was pressed with unremitting intensity until the last Japanese pocket fell on 22 January 1943.
As the 16th Brigade of the Australian 6th Division and 25th Brigade of the Australian 7th Division came down to the southeastern coastal plain of New Guinea, they could look back on a series of uninterrupted victories since pushing the enemy out of Ioribaiwa on 28 September. Kokoda had fallen on 3 November; after a stand in front of Oivi, the Japanese had retreated without offering further battle. The Australians had pushed on toward the sea. On 19 November they made contact in Popondetta with an American patrol from the 126th Infantry, and patrols of the 25th Brigade entered Gona. These patrols were forced out of Gona by a Japanese counter-attack before the main body of the brigade could come up.
On the same day the U. S. 126th Infantry under Col. Clarence M. Tomlinson was attached to the 7th Division to operate west of the Girua River. The 2d Battalion reverted to the control of the 32d Division on 22 November and fought with the Urbana Force, but the 3d Battalion and part of the rst Battalion (C Company less one platoon, and all of D Company) remained on the Sanananda front until g January. The Cannon and Antitank Companies of the regiment, which had been in the vicinity of Juare, joined the Sanananda forces on 29 November.