Edwin F. Harding - World War II Commands

World War II Commands

The 32nd Infantry Division had been scheduled to receive a year of training before it left the United States. It was authorized to have a peace-time strength of about 11,600 soldiers, but like almost all units in the National Guard and the Regular Army prior to World War II, was not at full strength nor was it assigned all of the equipment it was authorized. Training for many soldiers was incomplete. Harding was a leader who exuded confidence. The 2nd Battalion of the 126th Infantry Regiment, was deployed on an extremely arduous flanking maneuver on the Kapa Kapa Trail over a 9,100 feet (2,800 m) divide toward Jaure. The total distance over the mountains to the Japanese positions was over 130 miles (209 km), and most of the trail was barely a goat path. The Kapa Kapa trail across the Owen Stanley divide was a "dank and eerie place, rougher and more precipitous" than the Kokoda Track on which the Australians and Japanese were then fighting. It was "one of the most harrowing marches in American military history."

In a first for World War II, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the 128th Infantry Regiment to be flown from Australia to New Guinea, the greatest distance the Air Force had airlifted men up to that time. When he learned how the trek across the 9,100 feet (2,800 m) mountain divide was so debilitating and lengthy, Harding requested that the remainder of the division be flown to the Buna area, to join Australian units in an assault on the main Japanese beachheads in eastern New Guinea. A local priest informed the Allies that there was a landing field on the western slopes and MacArthur ordered the rest of the 32nd flown across the Owen Stanley Range, becoming the first U.S. Army artillery flown into combat in the Pacific in World War II.