In the largest land offensive yet launched by the Western Allies against Imperial Japan, after four months of brutal combat in the mountains around Salamaua, the Japanese 18th Army would be smashed by a simultaneous airborne and amphibious landings by the Australian 1st corps, enveloping Lae and threatening the 51st division with annihilation. One of the great allied victories of the pacific war, this little known episode of world war two is one of the most important, and impressive, Australian achievements of the war as a whole, one which is basically unknown in Australia. Aided ably by the American 162nd regiment and the paratroopers of the 503rd, General Herring's New Guinea Force would breach Japan's most formidable southern defences. Indeed, Operation Postern would be the first step in a series of offensives that would take the Allies to the Philippines.
(This is a Re-Upload. Youtube’s evaluation of content is, at times, both opaque and arbitrary, and several of my subscribers have let me know that they cannot view this episode in its original incarnation because it has been restricted. It was only age restricted as far as I know, but people are having trouble watching it. The only changes are the removal of a single image which showed a fallen Japanese soldier. Please forgive the repetition.)
0:00 The Allied Strategy for 1943
13:44 The Reform of the Australian Army
24:14 Japanese and Allied Plans in New Guinea and the Death of Yamamoto
36:06 General Savige takes command around Mubo
50:39 Commandos at Bobdubi
54:51 The Defence of Lababia Ridge
1:05:04 The Americans at Nassau Bay
1:13:51 The Assault on Mubo
1:24:22 The Noose Tightens around Salamaua
1:36:36 Preparations for Lae
1:43:35 D-Day for the Rats of Tobruk and the 503rd
1:53:55 Flight
2:02:19 A Great Allied Victory
