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Casualty Info
Home Town Rigby, ID
Last Address Rigby, ID
Casualty Date Dec 15, 1943
Cause MIA-Finding of Death
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Location New Guinea
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Description The Battle of Arawe (15 December 1943 – 24 February 1944) was fought between Allied and Japanese forces during the New Britain Campaign of World War II. The battle formed part of the Allied Operation Cartwheel, and had the objective of serving as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester in late December 1943. The Japanese military was expecting an Allied offensive in western New Britain, and was reinforcing the region at the time of the Allied landing in the Arawe area on 15 December 1943. The Allies secured Arawe after about a month of intermittent fighting with the outnumbered Japanese force.
Initial Allied goals for the landing at Arawe included securing a base for American PT boats and diverting Japanese forces away from Cape Gloucester. The PT boat base was subsequently deemed unnecessary and was never built. Only a small Japanese force was stationed at Arawe at the time, although reinforcements were en route.
The main Allied landing on 15 December was successful, despite a failed subsidiary landing and problems coordinating the landing craft. American forces quickly secured a beachhead and dug in. Japanese air units made large-scale raids against the Arawe area in the days after the landing, and in late December Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) troops unsuccessfully counterattacked the American force. In mid-January 1944 the American force, reinforced with additional infantry and tanks, launched a brief offensive that pushed the Japanese back. The Japanese units at Arawe withdrew from the area towards the end of February as part of a general retreat from western New Britain.
