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4. Establishing the Beachhead The Japanese were fully aware of how Allied activity in the Solomons endangered Rabaul, their main naval and air base in the southern Pacific, but they were in a difficult position. The loss of New Georgia and the occupation of Kolombangara had left only the two islands of Choiseul and Vella Lavella in the central Solomons with any Japanese troops present. Then, during the first days of October, the Japanese command at Rabaul decided, against all logic, to rescue the six hundred men isolated in northern Vella Lavella. Although successful after a drawn naval engagement on the night of 6-7 October off Horaniu, Vella Lavella, the withdrawal left Admiral Halsey's forces in total control of the central Solomons. Admiral Koga and his subordinates recognized the probability of an early assault on Bougainville, which, if successful, would bring Rabaul within less than two hundred miles of Allied air power. The Japanese were convinced that any such invasion had to be countered with all the planes and ships available in the southern theater. Yet they could not concentrate their entire naval and air force against the Solomons because of the American and Australian forces on New Guinea and the fear that a land invasion of New Britain was imminent. Admiral Koga also expected the United States to attempt a landing in the Gilbert or Marshall islands. The twopronged Allied strategy had served to freeze the Japanese army units in their locations in New Guinea and the Solomons. Later U.S. naval and air superiority would effectively isolate these troops and make it nearly impossible to shift reinforcements to a threatened area. nwas obvious to the planners at General MacArthur's and Admi- Establishing the Beachhead 61 ral Halsey's headquarters thatJapanese air power sited atRabaul and at the Bougainville fields of Kahili, Buin, Kieta, and Buka must be neutralized before the Empress Augusta Bay operation could take place. The task of keeping theJapanese air power at Rabaul busy fell to General Kenney's 5th Air Force, while the more direct attacks on the Solomons' fields would be left to AIRSOLS. Photographs of the four airfields at Rabaul taken on 11 October showed 128 bombers and 145 fighters. The next day Kenney hit Rabaul with the largest air strike yet in the Pacific war, sending 213 heavy and medium bombers escorted by 125 P-38s over the target. They sank three large merchant vessels and scores of smaller ships, blew up ammunition dumps, and destroyed over a hundred planes on the ground. Bad weather over New Britain kept the 5th from repeating this action there, but Kenney's fighters had a field day intercepting Japanese dive bombers and fighters on 15 and 16 October. On 18 October, fifty-four B-25s, operating with a ceiling of only two hundred feet, hit and almost totally destroyed Rabaul's Tobera airfield. As soon as the weather improved the large-scale raids on the Rabaul airfields continued. Sixty-two B-25s escorted by fifty-four P-38s struck once more at Vunakanau, Rapapo, and Tobera fields and destroyed many more planes on the ground. In addition, the fighters and bombers shot down forty-three of the Japanese fighters sent up to intercept. The constant raids against Rabaul and Wewak in New Guinea had reduced Kenney's force so that by 29 October, on the eve of the Bougainville landings, he was able to send only fifty-three P-38s and thirty-seven B-24s over Rabaul, once again with good results. Kenney planned a further strike for 31 October, but bad weather postponed this until 2 November.l In the meantime other air groups were hitting targets in the Solomons . The eclectic AIRSOLS, comprising units of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, General Twining's heavy bombers of the 13th Air Force, and 1st and 2d Marine Air Wings, by mid-October had 314 fighters and 317 bombers attacking various targets in the Bougainville area. Most of the bombers continued to operate out of Guadalcanal, but the bulk of the fighter strength had been moved forward to the new airfields on New Georgia and Vella Lavella. Although the Japanese from the Rabaul airfields were a nuisance during and immediately after the landings at Cape Torokina, they had on 1 November only an estimated 154 planes in the northern Solomons, one-third the number of Allied land-based planes. AIRSOLS increased its level of activity over Bougainville as D day drew...

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