Qualla: Battle of the Green Islands https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of the Green Islands https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands Battle of the Green Islands: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The codename was Operation Squarepeg, and the planners meant it literally. The Green Islands are a ring of low coral atolls around a wide interior lagoon, and the only way to use them as an Allied airbase was to cut an airstrip into a place that had never really wanted one. On 15 February 1944, 5,800 men - more than 4,200 of them New Zealanders - waded ashore on Nissan Island, the crescent-shaped anchor of the atoll chain. The fighting was brief. The occupation lasted eighteen months. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a young US Navy lieutenant named Richard Nixon ran air transport out of a Quonset hut.

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of the Green Islands: The Ring of Atolls https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The Green Islands sit about 150 miles from Rabaul, halfway between Bougainville and New Ireland. Nissan is the main island, a west-facing crescent closing off a lagoon four nautical miles across, with smaller islets sealing the ring. At the time of the battle around 1,200 Melanes...

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-the-ring-of-atolls.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of the Green Islands: Reconnaissance First, Then the Tide https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. On 30 January 1944, the New Zealanders came quietly. Three hundred troops from the 30th Battalion, with American and New Zealand intelligence and communications personnel, slipped ashore under escort of destroyers and motor torpedo boats. Their job was to count the Japanese, pick...

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-reconnaissance-first-then-the-tide.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of the Green Islands: Sharp at Sea, Brief on Land https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The heavier resistance came in the air. As the convoy closed, Japanese aircraft from Rabaul found the task force. The landing craft and transports came through unhurt, but the cruiser USS St. Louis, part of the southern covering force, took a hit that killed 23 men and wounded 28...

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-sharp-at-sea-brief-on-land.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of the Green Islands: Building Faster Than Fighting https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The real work was the Seabees. The 33rd, 37th, and 93rd Naval Construction Battalions turned Nissan into an Allied base with the methodical violence the Seabees were known for. A 450-foot coral seaplane ramp went in. Three moorings with concrete anchors and oil-drum buoys. A fuel...

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-building-faster-than-fighting.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of the Green Islands: The Lieutenant in the Quonset Hut https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-green-islands/ Photo credit Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command - SCAT - ran cargo and mail into forward bases and carried wounded men back out. On the Green Islands in early 1944, the officer in charge of that detachment was Lieutenant Richard Nixon, then a young Navy reservist whose postwar car...

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Image: Historical Branch, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/r/j/w/battle-of-the-green-islands-wp/rrjw-battle-of-the-green-islands-the-lieutenant-in-the-quonset-hut.mp3 0:06 6 full