Bismarck Sea, battle of

Bismarck Sea, battle of. The most devastating air attack on shipping since the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 took place in March 1943 in the waters which divide New Guinea from the Bismarck Archipelago. But on this occasion it was Allied aircraft which sank many Japanese vessels.

After suffering a series of reverses in the New Guinea campaign, the Japanese decided to reinforce the Lae and Salamaua area on New Guinea's north-eastern coast with nearly 7,000 men of 51st Division, part of Lt-General Adachi Hatazo's Eighteenth Army. On the night of 28 February 1943 these men, loaded aboard eight transports and escorted by eight destroyers, sailed from Rabaul.

The Americans, however, had been alerted to Japanese intentions by naval ULTRA intelligence and had had time to move their aircraft forward, and even to have a full-scale rehearsal of the tactics to be employed. The convoy was first attacked on the night of 2 March when aircraft of Kenney's Fifth US Army Air Force sank one of the transports and damaged two others. Then at dawn Australian Beaufighters and US bombers attacked again. Some aircraft were equipped for skip bombing, while others had been specially altered for low-level strafing. Out of 37 500 lb. (227 kg.) bombs dropped by the first wave, 28 hit their targets leaving the way for later waves to inflict further damage. After PT boats attacked that night, and bombers finished off two crippled destroyers the following day, only four destroyers escaped destruction. Though 950 survivors reached Lae, and many were rescued by the surviving destroyers, more than 3,660 Japanese troops were killed in the water. See also air power.