Qualla: Landing at Lae https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae 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/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Landing at Lae https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae Landing at Lae: Introduction https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit Phenss, CC BY-SA 3.0. For the men in the landing craft that morning, it was the first time an Australian army had come ashore under fire since Gallipoli - twenty-eight years of army memory telling them how wrong this kind of operation could go. The beaches they were aimed at sat about 27 kilometers east of Lae, a sickle of sand between a jungle wall and the Huon Gulf. It was 4 September 1943. Across those ten miles of water, the Japanese had been dug in at Lae for eighteen months. The plan was not to storm the town at all. It was to land behind it, drop paratroopers inland, and squeeze the garrison between two advancing forces until something gave.

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Image: Phenss | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Landing at Lae: Operation Postern https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit D Holmes Jr, Public domain. The landing was the opening move of Operation Postern, itself one piece of MacArthur's larger Cartwheel strategy to crack open the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul. By mid-1943 the Allies had won enough fights in New Guinea - Kokoda, Milne Bay, Buna-Gona, the Battle of the Bismarck ...

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Image: D Holmes Jr | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-operation-postern.mp3 0:06 2 full Landing at Lae: The Landing Beaches https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit D Holmes Jr, Public domain. The plan called for two beaches, imaginatively named Red and Yellow, separated by a small creek. The U.S. VII Amphibious Force would deliver the Australians - the first time the young amphibious command had worked with them, the first time the Australian Army had done this kind o...

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Image: D Holmes Jr | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-the-landing-beaches.mp3 0:06 3 full Landing at Lae: The Airborne Pincer https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit D Holmes Jr, Public domain. While the 9th Division pushed west along the coast, the 7th Division came from the sky. On 5 September, paratroopers of the U.S. 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment dropped onto Nadzab, 30 kilometers inland in the Markham Valley, followed in subsequent days by Australian troops flo...

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Image: D Holmes Jr | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-the-airborne-pincer.mp3 0:06 4 full Landing at Lae: Race to the Town https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit D Holmes Jr, Public domain. The advance was not tidy. Rains turned tracks into black muck. The Busu River, in flood, swept away soldiers trying to cross. A division's worth of supplies - fuel, ammunition, rations, quinine - had to come by landing craft and jeep through conditions the planners had underestim...

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Image: D Holmes Jr | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-race-to-the-town.mp3 0:06 5 full Landing at Lae: What the Landing Meant https://qualla.com/landing-at-lae/ Photo credit D Holmes Jr, Public domain. Lae fell with around 115 Australians killed in the 9th Division's sector. Given the scale of the operation - the first Australian amphibious landing in a generation, conducted with an American partner the Australians had never worked with before - that was a remarkable outcome. T...

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Image: D Holmes Jr | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/9/landing-at-lae-wp/rqb9-landing-at-lae-what-the-landing-meant.mp3 0:06 6 full