Qualla: Battle of Wareo https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo 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/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Wareo https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo Battle of Wareo: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit SpoolWhippetsWC, CC BY-SA 3.0. The junction tracks had pub names. Australian patrols from the 2/43rd Infantry Battalion, scouting north of Scarlet Beach in October 1943, mapped the trail system the Japanese used to move supplies inland and labeled the key crossings after hotels in Adelaide: Imperial, Oriental, Norfolk, Exchange. Somebody back home would have recognized every one of them. Somewhere out there in the jungle north of Finschhafen, reconnaissance platoons were trudging between trees and calling a muddy clearing "the Exchange" because it reminded them of a pub they could not sit in. It was a quiet kind of homesickness, the kind you fold into the work. The tracks became the geography of the Battle of Wareo.

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Wareo: After the Mountain https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit SpoolWhippetsWC, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Sattelberg fell on 25 November 1943, the next question wrote itself. A major air and naval base was already planned at Finschhafen - General Headquarters in the Southwest Pacific had decided this on 5 November - and the Japanese forces that had just been chased off the mount...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-after-the-mountain.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Wareo: The Ninth Division Navy https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit SpoolWhippetsWC, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before any advance could proceed, the supplies had to get there. The American 2nd Engineer Special Brigade ran landing craft from Lae across rough water to Dreger Harbour and Langemak Bay - sheltered, though not yet finished as ports. The men called this flotilla the "9th Divisio...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-the-ninth-division-navy.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Wareo: Pabu Hill https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit SpoolWhippetsWC, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Australian move that set up the whole advance was the occupation of Pabu Hill in mid-November. Three companies of the 2/32nd Infantry Battalion, under Major Bill Mollard, struck north of the Song River from the Australian position at North Hill, navigated past Japanese positi...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-pabu-hill.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Wareo: Disease More Than Bullets https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit SpoolWhippetsWC, CC BY-SA 3.0. The three-pronged advance began on 27 November, the coastal drive led by the 2/28th Infantry Battalion with Matilda tanks and engineers. Early progress was unopposed. Then came the Kalueng River, and resistance. Artillery and mortars cleared one position; another stopped the adva...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-disease-more-than-bullets.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Wareo: Wareo and the Road North https://qualla.com/battle-of-wareo/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. By the first week of December, Katagiri had seen enough. His troops were exhausted and hungry. Supplies were not arriving. He ordered the 79th and 80th Infantry Regiments to fall back north - the 79th toward Kalasa and Sio, the 80th east toward the coast. The 2nd Battalion of the...

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

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/c/5/battle-of-wareo-wp/rqc5-battle-of-wareo-wareo-and-the-road-north.mp3 0:06 6 full