Bougainville campaign

Bougainville campaign (1943–45)
Part of the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific Theater (World War II)
United States Army soldiers hunt Japanese infiltrators on Bougainville in March 1944.
Date 1 November 1943 – 21 August 1945 Location Bougainville, Territory of New Guinea (geographically part of the Solomon Islands) 6°8′S 155°18′E / 6.133°S 155.300°E / -6.133; 155.300 Result Allied victory
Belligerents
United States  Australia  New Zealand Fiji	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Douglas MacArthur William F. Halsey Theodore S. Wilkinson Alexander A. Vandegrift Allen H. Turnage Robert S. Beightler Roy S. Geiger Oscar W. Griswold Thomas Blamey Stanley Savige Alan Ramsay William Bridgeford H. E. Barrowclough Robert Amos Row	Hitoshi Imamura Harukichi Hyakutake Mineichi Koga Jinichi Kusaka Tomoshige Samejima Sentaro Omori Kiyoto Kagawa † Masatane Kanda
Strength
144,000 American troops 30,000 Australian troops[1] 728 aircraft[2]	45,000–65,000 troops[3] 154 aircraft[2]
Casualties and losses
United States: 727 dead Australia: 516 dead[4]	18,500–21,500 dead[3][Note 1]

Part of a series on the
History of Bougainville
Prehistory (Kilu Cave) German colony (details) Australian mandate Japanese invasion Allied counter-invasion Territory of Papua and New Guinea Republic of the North Solomons Bougainville conflict Autonomous Bougainville Government Independence referendum
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The Bougainville campaign was a series of land and naval battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II between Allied forces and the Empire of Japan, named after the island of Bougainville. It was part of Operation Cartwheel, the Allied grand strategy in the South Pacific.

The campaign took place in the Northern Solomons in two phases. The first phase, in which American troops landed and held the perimeter around the beachhead at Torokina, lasted from November 1943 through November 1944. The second phase, in which primarily Australian troops went on the offensive, mopping up pockets of starving, isolated but still-determined Japanese, lasted from November 1944 until August 1945, when the last Japanese soldiers on the island surrendered. Operations during the final phase of the campaign saw the Australian forces advance north towards the Bonis Peninsula and south towards the main Japanese stronghold around Buin, although the war ended before these two enclaves were completely destroyed.

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