The campaign to reduce the importance of the major Japanese base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain—begun more than a year earlier at Guadalcanal and Buna, New Guinea—was finally in its last stages by November 1943, as U.S. Marines fought the Japanese on the island of Bougainville.
In fact, the plan, known as Operation Cartwheel, changed from seizing the enemy base at Rabaul to bypassing it. The seizure of Bougainville in the northern Solomon Islands would complete the base’s isolation.
Major General Roy S. Geiger’s I Marine Amphibious Corps arrived off the Bougainville invasion beaches of Cape Torokina early on the morning of November 1, 1943, and soon began landing Major General Allen H. Turnage’s 3rd Marine Division, reinforced with the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment and 2nd
Marine Raider Regiment. A beachhead was quickly established, and fighting continued as the Marines moved inland. The objective was to establish an airbase on the cape from which air superiority could be maintained over Rabaul, eventually neutralizing the enemy stronghold entirely.
