Above: "Marines come ashore at Cape Gloucester, 26 December 1943." USMC Archives. Cape Gloucester USMC Photo No. 17. From the Frederick R. Findtner Collection (COLL/3890), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections. Official USMC photograph and in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.
Left: "Marines and tanks at the water's edge on Cape Gloucester, December 1943." USMC Archives, Cape Gloucester USMC Photo No. 11. From the Frederick R. Findtner Collection (COLL/3890), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections. Official USMC photograph and in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.
The New Britain Campaign was fought from 15 December 1943 to 21 August 1945. The Battle of Cape Goucester, code named "Operation Backhander," was the second battle fought by regiments of the 1st Marine Division after Guadalcanal. Necessary for its airfields, Cape Gloucester became a quagmire or non-stop rains and flooding, making the fighting even more difficult.
R.V. Burgin, in his memoir Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific, recalls the non-stop rain: "It scarcely seemed possible, but the rains started coming harder, thirty-six inches in one twenty-four-hour period. I'd never seen so much rain. We stayed wet so long my little toenails rotted off. Our clothes mildewed and stank. We stank. The only time we could bathe or wash our clothes was if we crossed a stream or found ourselves near the ocean." (Burgin, 2010. pp. 81-83.)
A Japanese survivor remembers
In Japan at War: An Oral History, Ogawa Tamotsu, a medic in the Japanese Army recalls his last year (of 6 years total) in a field hospital on New Britain: "I was on New Britain for three years, and here's what I learned: Men killed in real combat are a very small part of those who die in war. Men died of starvation, all kinds of disease. They just fell out, one after another while on the run in the jungle. Amoebic dysentery, malaria, malnutrition. The ones without arms or with only one leg had to walk on their own. Worms and maggots dropped from their tattered, blood-soaked uniforms. Men suffering from dysentery walked naked, with leaves, not toilet paper, hanging from their buttocks. Malaria patients staggered along with temperatures as high as 103." (Cook & Cook, 1992. p. 278)
Left: "The rains were another enemy on Cape Gloucester. Even with tire chains, this jeep needed help from marines to reach dry land. December 1943-January 1944." USMC Archives, Cape Gloucester USMC Photo No. 19. From the Frederick R. Findtner Collection (COLL/3890), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections. Official USMC photograph and in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.
That Operation Backhander was one campaign in Operation Cartwheel--the goal to neutralize the Japanese base at Rabaul--Cape Gloucester's airfields were lightly defended and lost to the marines. Ian W. Toll, in The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 writes that "Surviving Japanese forces retreated toward Rabaul and prepared for what they assumed would be the largest land battle of the South Pacific campaign." (Toll, 2015. p. 240.)
Multimedia: Video, Web, Photo, and Discussion
Videos (2): Marine veteran Sid Phillips reflects on Cape Gloucester · RV Burgin recalls banzai charges on Cape Gloucester
Photo album (1): USMC Archives: The Battle of Cape Gloucester
Website and webpages (2): Marine Corps University: The New Britain Campaign · Naval History and Heritage Command: Battle of Cape Gloucester
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