Qualla: Battle of Wau https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau 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/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Wau https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau Battle of Wau: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. The race was absurd on its face. Japanese infantry, loaded with rifles and rations, hacking through jungle-choked mountains toward a mining town held by a few hundred Australians. Australian reinforcements waiting in Port Moresby for the clouds to part, trying to deliver a whole brigade through passes where Dakotas had to dodge "a peak here and a cloud there" and land at high speed on an uphill strip. On 29 January 1943, the Japanese reached Wau. The Australians were still flying in. What happened over the next six days would settle whether the Japanese could strangle Allied operations in eastern New Guinea, or whether a gold-rush airstrip in the Morobe highlands would become the hinge on which the Pacific war turned.

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Wau: A Town Built by Gold https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. Wau existed because men chased nuggets. In the 1920s, prospectors landed at Salamaua on the coast and clawed inland along the Black Cat Track, a killing trail of leeches, vertical mud, and malarial creeks. What they found in the Wau-Bulolo Valley justified the suffering: gold, in...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-a-town-built-by-gold.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Wau: Kanga Force and the Bulldog Track https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. By mid-1942, Japan held Lae and Salamaua on the coast. Wau was cut off, its civilian evacuation half-finished, some 250 European and Asian men left stranded when fighter escorts became unavailable. They walked out, over the Owen Stanley Range on foot, through Kudjeru and Tekadu t...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-kanga-force-and-the-bulldog-track.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Wau: The Convoy and the Ultra Intercepts https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura at Rabaul read the situation correctly: Kanga Force was a knife pointed at his supply lines. On 29 December 1942, his subordinate Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi ordered Major General Toru Okabe and the 102nd Infantry Regiment to take Wau. The ...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-the-convoy-and-the-ultra-intercepts.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Wau: Sherlock's Stand https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. The Australians had been flying in reinforcements since early January. Weather was the worst enemy. Only 28 Dakotas served all of New Guinea in three understrength squadrons, split between the Buna front and Wau. Three of them crashed. Brigadier Murray Moten was turned back twice...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-sherlocks-stand.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Wau: The Skies Opened https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. Then the weather broke. The Buna fighting had ended on 23 January, freeing aircraft, and 52 brand-new Dakotas of the US 317th Troop Carrier Group arrived in Australia, rushed forward at MacArthur's urgent request. Up to 40 aircraft were now available daily. On 29 January, 57 plan...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-the-skies-opened.mp3 0:06 6 full Battle of Wau: The Cost and the Pivot https://qualla.com/battle-of-wau/ Photo credit U.S. Army Center of Military History, Public domain. Kanga Force had lost 30 officers and 319 men since its founding, 52 of those from the 2/6th Battalion that bore the weight of Sherlock's stand. The Australians counted 753 Japanese dead around Wau, and with the 361 lost aboard Nichiryu Maru and airmen downed over the valley, Japa...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/8/q/battle-of-wau-wp/rq8q-battle-of-wau-the-cost-and-the-pivot.mp3 0:06 7 full