The Admiralty Islands campaign (Operation Brewer) was a series of battles in the New Guinea campaign of World War II in which the United States Army's 1st Cavalry Division occupied the Japanese-held Admiralty Islands.
Acting on reports from airmen that there were no signs of enemy activity and the islands may have been evacuated, General Douglas MacArthur accelerated his timetable for capturing the Admiralties and ordered an immediate reconnaissance in force. The campaign began on 29 February 1944 when a force landed on Los Negros, the third-largest island in the group. By using a small, isolated beach where the Japanese had not anticipated an assault, the force achieved tactical surprise, but the islands proved to be far from unoccupied. A furious battle over the islands ensued.
In the end, air superiority and command of the sea allowed the Allies to heavily reinforce their position on Los Negros. The 1st Cavalry Division could then overrun the islands. The campaign officially ended on 18 May 1944. The Allied victory completed the isolation of the major Japanese base at Rabaul that was the ultimate objective of the Allied campaigns of 1942 and 1943. A major air and naval base was developed in the Admiralty Islands that became an important launching point for the campaigns of 1944 in the Pacific.
Read more about Admiralty Islands Campaign: Casualties, Analysis
Famous quotes containing the words islands and/or campaign:
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“The winter is to a woman of fashion what, of yore, a campaign was to the soldiers of the Empire.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)