The Bougainville Campaign is sometimes pushed aside for the glory of Kokoda or El Alamein. However we must remember that 65,000 Japanese soldiers perished there. That is twice the loss sustained by Australia in the entire war. Australians accounted for over 18,000 of those Jap losses. Check this site with many photos and the history. http://www.diggerhistory3.info/bougainville/ In 1942 the advancing Japanese army occupied Bougainville until it was partly recaptured by the United States USMC and US Army in 1943/44. On 1 November 1943, the US 3rd Marine Division landed at Torokina on the northern side of Empress Augusta Bay and secured the beachhead. The Marines were relieved by the US XIV Corps on 15 November. In March 1944, a full scale Japanese offensive against the American positions was repulsed but the Americans did not extend their perimeter further and were in the same positions when the Australian II Corps under the command of Lieutenant General Stanley Savige took command in December 1944. In late 1944, the Americans (who pulled their (2) divisions out for service in the Philippines) estimated that 12,000 Japanese remained in the islands, the Australians estimated that 25,000 remained but in fact there were 40,000 of whom 8,000 were in the forward area. Japanese records showed that 18,300 of their troops died in the Bougainville campaign during the time the Australians were there (from Dec 44). The Australians lost 516 killed and 1,572 wounded. More than 23,000 Japanese surrendered on Bougainville and Buka Islands at war's end; a total of 40,000 had been killed or died of illnesses since late 1943.
That was also an important campaign for New Zealand...the RNZAF was heavily involved in bombing Rabaul and the other bases on Bougainville, to keep them suppressed. By late in the war, the Rabaul garrison was out of communication, and aerial recce photos show many rice paddies and farming plots....the Japanese troops had to grow their own food. It was a huge garrison, and it expected an American invasion at any time. It never happened. A number of the defenders, after V-J Day, were so ashamed at not being able to shed their lives for the Emperor, that they simply fled into the jungles, and lived out their days as wretched jungle animals.
