Qualla: Battle of Kaiapit

Battle of Kaiapit: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, Public domain. Captain Gordon King climbed into a C-47 Dakota at Port Moresby on the morning of 17 September 1943, carrying orders so brisk they read like a telegram. Thirteen transport aircraft lifted off. Two hours later, one blew a tire landing on the rough Leron airstrip, and another tried to touch down on a single wheel before its undercarriage collapsed into a belly landing. The plane was written off. Nobody was hurt, and nobody yet knew that a Japanese force of roughly 500 men was marching through the mountains toward the same village King had been ordered to capture. King had about 300. Two days later, he would attack anyway.

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Image: Unknown | Public domain

Battle of Kaiapit: The Valley and the Plan

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit F. Temple derivative work: Nick-D (talk), Public domain. The Markham Valley is a long, flat depression cutting through the mountains of northeast New Guinea. The Markham River runs southeast to the port of Lae; the Ramu River runs northwest toward the coast at Madang. Between them an invisible divide separates the two drainages. In Sep...

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Image: F. Temple derivative work: Nick-D (talk) | Public domain

Battle of Kaiapit: The Race for Kaiapit

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, Public domain. What neither side knew at first was that both were converging on the village at once. The Japanese commander Major General Masutaro Nakai had ordered Major Yonekura Tsuneo to lead a reinforced force to Kaiapit - two infantry companies of the 78th Regiment, one from the 80th, plus...

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Image: Unknown | Public domain

Battle of Kaiapit: Two Days at the Village

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, Public domain. The 2/6th Independent Company was organized differently from a regular infantry company - smaller in some ways, but with considerably more firepower. Each subsection carried a Bren light machine gun; most other soldiers carried Owen submachine guns rather than rifles. When King's...

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Image: Unknown | Public domain

Battle of Kaiapit: What the Victory Opened

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, Public domain. Lieutenant Frazier landed his Piper Cub on the captured airstrip at 12:30 that afternoon and immediately decided it was unsuitable for Dakotas. A new strip was prepared near Mission Hill, and the next day Hutchison landed a test Dakota there, evacuated the wounded, and brought ba...

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Battle of Kaiapit: Luck and Skill

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, Public domain. Vasey later told King that 'we were lucky, we were very lucky.' King bristled: 'If you're inferring that what we did was luck, I don't agree with you sir because I think we weren't lucky, we were just bloody good.' Vasey meant something more honest than King first heard. He had s...

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Image: Unknown | Public domain