Big Pigeon in Southwest Iowa
  • Home
    • Usage Hints
    • Acknowledgments
    • Resources >
      • Free Sites
      • Pay Sites
      • Print Resources
      • Search Engines
      • Land Records
      • Resources - Denmark >
        • Finding Danish Ancestors
    • Project Mgt - Public >
      • Website Overview
      • Website Log
      • Project Overview
      • Mac Computer Use
      • Weebly Use
      • Reunion Use
      • Project History
      • Image Provenance
    • Project Mgt - Private >
      • Site Management
      • Site Plan
      • Contact List
      • Backup Info & Log
      • System Info & Log
      • Image Storage
      • E-Mail Log
      • Asset Organization
      • History Index
      • Binders & Photos
      • Upon My Death
      • Donations & Dispersal
  • Family
    • Photos - Recent
    • Christiansen
    • Rasmussen
    • Christiansen/Rasmussen News
    • Larsen/Larson
    • Hansen
    • Larsen/Hansen News
    • Allied Families
    • Wall of Honor
  • St. Paul's
    • Early Families >
      • Early Families Help
      • Early Families More Lists
    • St. Paul's Roots
    • St. Paul's Timeline
    • St. Paul's Resources
  • History
    • Iowa History >
      • The Missouri River
      • The Native Americans
      • The Colonial Period
      • The Louisiana Purchase
      • Iowa Land Cessions
    • SW Iowa History >
      • The Corps of Discovery
      • Middle Missouri Fur Trade
      • Yellowstone Expedition
      • The Potawatomi Years
      • The Mormon Years
      • Political Organization
      • Population Data
      • Transportation Maps
    • Pott. Co. History
    • Big Pigeon Area >
      • Nearby Towns >
        • Beebeetown
        • Crescent
        • Honey Creeek
        • Loveland
        • Neola
        • Persia
        • Underwood
        • Weston
        • Lost Locales
      • Danes from Dronninglund
      • Maps & Plats
      • Big Pigeon Galleries >
        • Gallery 1 - Area Historic Structures
        • Gallery 2 - Grange Sunday School
    • Avoca >
      • Gold Star Avoca
      • Cuppy's Grove
    • LDS History >
      • LDS Links
      • Gallery 1 - Mormon Maps
    • A House Divided >
      • Endnotes
      • Niels Peder Pedersen
      • Ane Katrine Pedersen
      • Kirsten Pedersen
      • Kirsten's Story >
        • Kirsten's LDS Daughters
        • Kirsten's Daughter, Karen Bondo
        • Kirsten's Son, Anders Johnson
        • Kirsten's Niece, Christine Mortensen
        • Kirsten's Niece, Anne Marie Larsen
    • More History >
      • Pott. Co. Addendum
      • American History
  • WWII Dead
    • Roster Hub >
      • Roster A
      • Roster Ba-Be
      • Roster Bf-Bq
      • Roster Br-Bz
      • Roster Ca-Cm
      • Roster Cn-Cz
      • Roster D
      • Roster Da-De
      • Roster Df-Dz
      • Roster E-F
      • Roster E
      • Roster F
      • Roster G
      • Roster Ha-He
      • Roster Ha
      • Roster Hb-He
      • Roster Hf-Hz
      • Roster I-J
      • Roster I
      • Roster J
      • Roster K
      • Roster Ka-Ki
      • Roster Kj-Kz
      • Roster L
      • Roster La-Le
      • Roster Lf-Lz
      • Roster Ma-Mc
      • Roster Ma-Mb
      • Roster Mc
      • Roster Md-Mm
      • Roster Mn-Mz
      • Roster N-O
      • Roster N
      • Roster O
      • Roster P
      • Roster Pa-Pe
      • Roster Pf-Pz
      • Roster Q-R
      • Roster Q-Rh
      • Roster Ri-Rz
      • Roster Sa-Sh
      • Roster Si-Ss
      • Roster St-Sz
      • Roster T-U-V
      • Roster T
      • Roster U-V
      • Roster Wa-We
      • Roster Wf-Wz
      • Roster X-Y-Z
      • Roster Record Structure
      • Roster Storage
    • Ancillary Records >
      • Veterans A-F
      • Veterans G-M
      • Veterans N-Z
      • Other WWII Era Dead
    • Residences >
      • Monona Co.
      • Crawford Co.
      • Carroll Co.
      • Harrison Co.
      • Shelby Co.
      • Audubon Co.
      • Council Bluffs
      • Rural Pott. Co.
      • Cass Co.
      • Mills Co.
      • Montgomery Co.
      • Fremont Co.
      • Page Co.
      • Other SW Iowa Counties
      • Other Iowa Counties
      • StatesBorderingIowa
      • Other States
    • Land, Air, Sea Dead >
      • Land Dead >
        • Division Dead - Japan
        • Division Dead - Germany
        • Other Land Dead
      • Air Dead
      • Sea Dead
    • Death Locations >
      • Pearl Harbor to Midway
      • Guadalcanal to Peleliu
      • Philippines to Okinawa
      • Other War w/ Japan Dead
      • The Battle of the Atlantic
      • The MTO - North Africa
      • The MTO - Italy
      • The MTO - Air, Sea, CommZ
      • The ETO - France
      • The ETO - Border Areas
      • The ETO - Germany
      • The ETO - Air, Sea, CommZ
      • Stateside
    • Roster Addenda >
      • Awards for Valor
      • Members Not in St. Paul's
      • Aggregate Roster Data
    • Roster Sources >
      • 1946 War Dept. Report
      • 1946 Navy Dept. Report
      • Pott. Area >
        • 1945 Pott. Co. Dead List
    • Roster Photos >
      • Roster Photos - Contents
      • Photos of Individuals
      • Land War with Japan
      • Air War with Japan
      • Sea War with Japan
      • Land War with Germany
      • Air War with Germany
      • Sea War with Germany
      • Stateside
      • Memorials
      • Cemeteries
    • Roster Outliers >
      • County Assignment
      • Navy Dept. Omissions
      • Multiple Names
      • Miscellaneous Exclusions
      • Pott. Co. Discrepancies
    • Roster Additions >
      • 2025 Additions Log
      • 2024 Additions Log
      • 2022-2023 Additions Log
      • 2020-2022 Additions Log
    • About the Roster >
      • Roster Planning
  • WWII Hub
    • WWII News
    • Big Pigeon & WWII
  • WWII US
    • WWII Overview
    • WWII Organization
    • Sources >
      • WWII Personnel
      • WWII Japan
      • WWII Germany
    • WWII Personnel >
      • Service Numbers
    • Casualties >
      • About Casualties
      • Army Casualties
      • Navy Casualties
      • Marine Corps Casualties
      • Dead
      • War Dept. Dead
      • Navy Dept. Dead
      • Prisoners of War
      • Burials
      • Missing
      • About Iowa Casualties
    • Ground Forces >
      • Army Campaigns
      • High Level Structure
      • Infantry Structure >
        • Infantry Equipment
      • Ground Forces - War with Japan
    • WWII in The Air
    • WWII at Sea
    • WWII at Home
    • Civilian Victims
    • Strategic Bombing
    • The Cold War
    • World War I >
      • Iowa In World War I
  • Japan
    • WWII Japan - Overview
    • Order of Battle >
      • OOB - Armies & Corps
      • OOB - Divisions
      • OOB - South Pacific
      • OOB - Southwest Pacific
      • OOB - Central Pacific
      • OOB - Philippines Liberated
      • OOB - Iwo Jima & Okinawa
    • Japan Ascendant
    • Japan Lashes Out >
      • Pearl Harbor, 1941
      • Guam & Wake Island
      • Malaya & Singapore Lost
      • The Dutch Indies Lost
      • The Philippines Lost
      • Northern Melanesia, 1942
    • Japan Overreaches >
      • 1942 Carrier Raids
      • Coral Sea
      • Midway
    • South & SW Pacific >
      • Securing Australia
      • Solomon Is., Guadalcanal
      • Naval War, Guadalcanal
      • SE New Guinea, Papua
      • Isolating Rabaul
      • Solomon Is., New Georgia
      • Solomon Is., Bougainville
      • Naval War, New Georgia & Bougainville
      • NE New Guinea, Lae to Madang
      • Bismarck Archipelago
      • Western New Guinea
    • North Pacific >
      • Alaska
      • Attu & Kiska
      • Pacific Lend-Lease Routes >
        • Toward the Philippines
    • Central Pacific >
      • Gilbert Islands
      • Marshall Islands >
        • Palau Islands
      • Mariana Islands
    • Philippines Liberated >
      • Leyte
      • Battle of Leyte Gulf
      • Philippines Naval War
      • Luzon
      • Southern Philippines
    • Iwo Jima & Okinawa >
      • Iwo Jima
      • Land Battle of Okinawa
      • Naval Battle of Okinawa
    • Japan Overpowered >
      • Japan Under Attack
      • Japan Vanquished
    • Naval War with Japan >
      • US Submarine Force
      • Third & Fifth Fleets
    • Air Force War with Japan >
      • Fifth Air Force
      • Seventh Air Force
      • Thirteenth Air Force
      • Twentieth Air Force
    • The Pacific Base Areas
    • CBI Theater >
      • China, 1941-45
      • India, 1942-45
      • Burma, 1941-45
      • Crossing the Hump
  • Germany
    • WWII Germany Overview
    • Battle of the Atlantic
    • The MTO >
      • MTO Background
      • MTO Overview
      • North Africa >
        • North Africa - Order of Battle
        • Operation Torch
        • The Race to Tunis
        • Tunisia
      • Italy >
        • Italy - Order of Battle
        • Italy - Sources
        • Sicily
        • Italy Leaves the Axis
        • Salerno-Naples-Foggia
        • Naples to Rome
        • The Volturno Line
        • The Bernhardt Line
        • Battle of Anzio
        • The Gustav Line/Cassino #1
        • Cassino #2 & #3
        • Cassino to Rome
        • Rome To Florence
        • Northern Apennines
        • North Apennines - 1944
        • North Apennines - 1945
        • The Po Valley
        • + April 1945 Breakthrough
        • + Advance to the Po
        • + Beyond the Po
      • MTO Air War
      • MTO Sea War
      • MTO Comm. Zone
    • The ETO >
      • ETO Overview >
        • ETO Background
      • ETO Orders of Battle >
        • ETO Unit Subordination
      • Normandy Campaign >
        • D-Day
        • ETO, 6 June 1944
        • Normandy, June 1944
        • ETO, 30 June 1944
        • Normandy, July 1944
        • After D-Day
      • Liberation >
        • Operation Cobra
        • ETO, 1 August 1944
        • Brittany
        • Normandy
        • Northern France & Belgium
        • ETO, 25 August 1944
        • Southern France
      • War of Attrition, 1944 >
        • ETO, September 1944
        • Netherlands, 1944
        • Rhineland, 1944
        • V Corps at the West Wall
        • Aachen
        • Hürtgen Forest
        • Operation Queen
        • Queen/Hürtgen
        • Last 1944 Offensives
        • Lorraine/Alsace, 1944
        • Lorraine/Third Army
        • Lorraine/Seventh Army
        • Alsace/Seventh Army
        • ETO, December 1944
      • Ardennes/The Bulge >
        • Before the Bulge
        • The Bulge Begins
        • The Bulge Grows
        • Ardennes, 25 December 1944
        • The Bulge Contained
        • The Bulge Eliminated
        • Ardennes/Bulge Details
        • Ardennes/Bulge Overview
      • Alsace-Lorraine, 1945 >
        • Nordwind Counterattack
        • Colmar Pocket
        • Seventh Army in Stasis
      • Siegfried Line, 1945 >
        • ETO, 26 January 1945
        • Operation Blackcock
        • First US Effort
        • Roer River Dams
        • VIII Corps to Prüm
        • XII Corps to Bitburg
        • XX Corps to Trier
      • To the Rhine >
        • ETO, 1 March 1945
        • Ops. Veritable & Grenade
        • Operation Lumberjack
        • Operation Undertone
        • Mid-Rhineland February 1945
        • Ninth & First Armies
        • Third & Seventh Armies
      • Central Europe >
        • Crossing the Rhine
        • Beyond the Rhine
        • ETO, 4 April 1945
        • Central Germany
        • Southern Germany
        • Germany Surrenders
      • ETO Air War >
        • Eighth Air Force
        • Ninth Air Force
      • ETO Sea War
      • ETO Comm. Zone
    • The Eastern Front
Picture
Picture

WWII Hub
WWII Japan
 bigpigeon.us webpage WWII Japan > South & SW Pacific, © 2024 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 1 April 2024.

In the South and Southwest Pacific until October 1944, Allied land operations consisted of three phases, as indicated by capitalization and indentation on the following list.
​Links to Big Pigeon's South & SW Pacific Area subpages:​
  • Securing Australia 
  •      The Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal, August 1942–February 1943
  •      The Solomons Naval War, Guadalcanal 
  •      Southeast New Guinea, Papua, July 1942–January 1943
  • Isolating Rabaul 
  •      The Solomon Islands, New Georgia, June–August 1943
  •      The Solomon Islands, Bougainville, November 1943–March 1944
  •      The Solomons Naval War, New Georgia & Bougainville 
  •      Northeast New Guinea, Lae to Madang, April 1943–April 1944
  • ​     The Bismarck Archipelago, December 1943–April 1944
  • Toward the Philippines 
  •      Western New Guinea, April–September 1944
  •      The Palau Islands (not yet available)
The South and Southwest Pacific Areas
The South & Southwest Pacific Areas (Western New Guinea is omitted)
Links to special webpages:
  • OOB - South Pacific
  • ​​OOB - Southwest Pacific
  • Naval War
United States offensive land operations in the South and Southwest Pacific Areas ...
  • ... began in the summer of 1942 with the US Marine Corps invasion of the Guadalcanal area in the Solomon Islands and Australian and US Army forces pushing back Japanese advances in Papua in southeast New Guinea.
  • ​... ended in September 1944 with the US Army invasion of Morotai in the Netherlands Indies, just north of the equator, 2,300 miles to the northwest. 
1942-44 US Path Across the Southwest Pacific
1942-1944 US Path Across the Southwest Pacific
Most of these operations, as with almost all Pacific Area offensive operations, began with amphibious landings and required major assistance from the US Navy. In particular, the Guadalcanal land campaign was coupled with a series of massive sea battles as the Imperial Japanese Navy fought ferociously to defeat the land campaign.
The Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), US Army controlled, was commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, with initial SWPA headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. 
  • MacArthur had been extracted from the Philippines to Australia before Japanese forces completed their capture of the Philippine Islands.
  • MacArthur initially lacked trained US troops and early land operations in the SWPA were primarily Australian in nature.
  • In April 1944, US forces assumed all combat operations in the SWPA.
  • Beginning in October 1944, US combat in the SWPA shifted to the Philippines, while Australian troops took over rear areas, where thousands of Japanese troops remained in pockets.
  • In mid 1945, Australia, with US support, began a series of invasions of the island of Borneo.
Southwest Pacific Area - 1942
Southwest Pacific Area - 1942

The South Pacific Area (SPA), US Navy controlled, was commanded by Admiral William Halsey from 19 October 1942 to May 1944 , with SPA headquarters at Noumea, New Caledonia. He reported to Admiral Chester Nimitz at Pacific Area headquarters in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
  • When necessary, SWPA and SPA boundaries were fluid. In mid 1943, after the capture of Guadalcanal, South Pacific Area combat moved up the Solomon Island chain into ostensible Southwest Pacific Area territory.
  • Beginning in late November 1944 with the US invasion of the Gilbert Islands to the east of the Solomon Islands, the South Pacific Area began to fade in importance as Nimitz's Central Pacific Area campaign began.
South Pacific Area
South Pacific Area
​Sources for Big Pigeon's WWII Japan > South & SW Pacific webpage:
  • The South and Southwest Pacific Areas map is Map #15 from The War at Sea 1939-1945, Volume 3: The Offensive, Part I" and was found at https://archive.org/details/war-at-sea-1939-1945-vol-3-part-1​. The full set of books follows, but it appears that they are mostly not on-line.
​         War at Sea 1939-1945, Volume 1: The Defensive, Roskill, S. W. London: HMSO, 1954
         War at Sea 1939-1945, Volume 2: The Period of Balance, Roskill, S. W. London: HMSO, 1956
         War at Sea 1939-1945, Volume 3: The Offensive, Part 1, Roskill, S. W. London: HMSO, 1960
         War at Sea 1939-1945, Volume 3: The Offensive, Part 2, Roskill, S. W. London: HMSO, 1961
  • The 1942 - 1944 US Path Across the Southwest Pacific map is taken from google.com.
  • The Southwest Pacific Area - 1942 map - https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-C-Papua/index.html. 
  • The South Pacific Area map - https://www.ww2places.qld.gov.au/south-west-pacific-campaign#gallery-51274-17.
  • The New Guinea Area map is courtesy of history.army.mil.
  • I constructed the 300-Mile Radius from Rabaul map using www.calcmaps.com.
  • The Rabaul - Harbor & Airfields - WW II map - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rabaul_-_map.jpg.
Proudly powered by Weebly