Qualla: Battle of the Bismarck Sea

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On the morning of 3 March 1943, a Japanese soldier aboard the destroyer Shirayuki was looking up into a sky full of aircraft. Most of them were flying very low. The Beaufighters came in first, their nose-mounted cannons raking the bridge. One bomb hit a magazine. The stern broke off. The ship was scuttled, and its captain, Rear Admiral Masatomi Kimura, was transferred to another destroyer, wounded. The Shirayuki was the first ship to sink in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Over the next three days, all seven remaining transports and three more destroyers would follow her down. Of the 6,900 Japanese soldiers aboard the convoy, only about 1,200 would ever set foot at Lae.

Image: Public domain

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: A Convoy with Nowhere to Go

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Army Air Forces, Public domain. The men packed aboard the transports were soldiers of the Japanese 51st Division, reinforcements urgently needed at Lae to shore up the collapsing line in New Guinea. The convoy had sailed from Rabaul, the great base on New Britain, hoping to slip across the Bismarck Sea under co...

Image: U.S. Army Air Forces | Public domain

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Men in the Water

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The destruction of the ships was only the beginning. By the end of 3 March, most of the transports were burning or sinking about 100 kilometers southeast of Finschhafen. The Japanese destroyers Shikinami, Yukikaze, Uranami and Asagumo moved among the wreckage, pulling survivors f...

Image: Public domain

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: The Cost on Both Sides

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Allied losses were small by comparison. Thirteen aircrew died, ten of them in combat and three in an accident. Eight were wounded. One B-17 and three P-38s were lost in the fighting; a B-25 and a Beaufighter went down in accidents. The propaganda claims that followed the battle w...

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: The Turning of the Tide

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. After the Bismarck Sea, the Japanese stopped sending large convoys to Lae. Reinforcements went instead to Wewak or Hansa Bay, far to the northwest, and from there the men walked. The 20th Division tried to build a road from Madang through the Ramu and Markham Valleys to Lae. The ...

Image: U.S. Army Center of Military History | Public domain

Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Game Theory from a Killing Ground

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In 1954, an American analyst named O. G. Haywood Jr. wrote an article modeling Kenney's decision as a two-person zero-sum game. The Japanese commander could sail north of New Britain or south; Kenney could search north or south. Four possible outcomes. Game theorists have taught ...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain