Seventy Years Ago: New Guinea

While the US and Japanese navies were fighting it out near Guadalcanal, the Japanese army had not given up on New Guinea. On August 25, Japanese forces occupy three small islands at the Southeast tip of New Guinea. On August 26, they invaded Milne Bay on New Guinea's Southeast coast.

August 27th, large numbers of US aircraft began arriving regularly at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Henderson Field was increasingly the strategic linchpin of US operations in the Southwest Pacific area.