Battle of Bougainville
Image taken from wikipedia.org
Bougainville is one of the forgotten battles of World War Two. The main objective of the campaign was to build the airfields which would be used to strike at the Japanese base at Rabaul. The main objective of this battle was not to take the entire island, but rather to attack and hold the airfield. The Marines landed on the jungle-infested island and attempted to establish a beachhead. The Japanese army made numerous attempt to force the Allies of off the beach, but to no avail. The main source of slow movement for the Americans was the number of marines being overtaken by jungle sicknesses such as malaria.
The Japanese continuously tried to slow the American advance. The Army eventually replaced the weary Marines, only to encounter a massive counterattack by Japanese soldiers. After this, the Japanese forces withdrew to the far corners of the island. The rest of the missions contained assaulting Japanese-held villages and bunkers. The battle continued for the next year which consisted of flushing out the Japanese who had taken refuge in the deep jungles. The airfield was operational, even while the battle was still raging. The fight on this island would rage until the official surrender of Japan in 1945. By the end of the battle, almost a thousand Americans and tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers were killed.
