In mid-1944, General Douglas MacArthur, the American Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific Area, secured an agreement from the Australian government for Australian forces to take over at Aitape.
There was little or no strategic gain to be had in doing so as the Japanese force based at Wewak no longer posed a real threat – cut off, short of supplies, and weakened from battle and diseases. The Americans were content to hold Aitape and not advance far towards Wewak. Like all of the jungle campaigns, it was challenging and casualties mounted steadily from battle and disease.Īmerican forces had bypassed the Japanese 18th Army base at Wewak in early 1944, taking Aitape, developing a base there and repulsing a major Japanese attack. Dubbed a 'forgotten campaign', it was fought by the 6th Division, Australian Imperial Force (AIF) with air and naval support. It ran from November 1944 to the war's end in August 1945.
The Aitape-Wewak campaign was the final Australian military campaign on mainland New Guinea. Aitape-Wewak campaign From the last Christmas of the Second World War, until that war ended … the Sixth Australian Infantry Division fought an obscure but at times bitter and bloody campaign along the savage north coast of New Guinea.
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