Qualla: Landing at Saidor https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor 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/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Landing at Saidor https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor Landing at Saidor: Introduction https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit 32nd Infantry Division archives, Public domain. Before dawn on 2 January 1944, six Landing Ships Tank, ten high-speed transports, and seventeen Landing Craft Infantry pushed into Dekays Bay on the north coast of New Guinea. Low cloud sat on the water. Drizzle obscured the shoreline. Admiral Daniel Barbey pushed H-Hour back twice, from 06:50 to 07:25, to give his destroyers enough light to bombard three beaches codenamed Red, White, and Blue. The bombardment fired 1,725 five-inch rounds. Rocket LCIs added 624 more. When the first wave of Americans reached the beach at 07:30, eleven Japanese had been killed by the shelling. Perhaps a hundred and fifty others had already vanished into the interior. Operation Michaelmas, the landing at Saidor, was designed to cut off 6,000 Japanese troops retreating west along the coast. It came very close to being a complete trap.

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Image: 32nd Infantry Division archives | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Landing at Saidor: The Idea https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit US Army, Public domain. Douglas MacArthur's original plan for the New Guinea campaign had Australian troops taking Lae, then Finschhafen, then jumping directly to Madang. The distance from Finschhafen to Madang was simply too far for the landing craft of 1943 to cover in one night. In August, the comman...

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Image: US Army | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-the-idea.mp3 0:06 2 full Landing at Saidor: Unopposed and Unfinished https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit US Army, Public domain. Brigadier General Clarence A. Martin commanded the Michaelmas Task Force, built around the 126th Regimental Combat Team of the 32nd Infantry Division, a unit rebuilt after the grinding Battle of Buna-Gona. Intelligence in Brisbane put fewer than 4,500 Japanese forward of Sio and ...

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Image: US Army | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-unopposed-and-unfinished.mp3 0:06 3 full Landing at Saidor: The Trap That Held and Did Not https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit US Army, Public domain. At Rabaul, General Hitoshi Imamura's staff argued briefly about whether to counter-attack or bypass. The 20th and 51st Divisions were in no condition to fight their way through an American perimeter. Imamura ordered Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi's Eighteenth Army to withdraw o...

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Image: US Army | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-the-trap-that-held-and-did-not.mp3 0:06 4 full Landing at Saidor: The Airfield That Mattered https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit US Army, Public domain. The geography that had made Saidor tempting in the first place proved out. Nadzab, the great airbase in the Markham Valley further south, was surrounded by mountains that made night operations dangerous. Saidor had no such walls. During March 1944, B-24 Liberators of the Fifth Ai...

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Image: US Army | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-the-airfield-that-mattered.mp3 0:06 5 full Landing at Saidor: What the Ground Remembers https://qualla.com/landing-at-saidor/ Photo credit US Army, Public domain. Saidor today is a quiet settlement on the north coast of Madang Province, a place most travellers pass over in favour of towns with better roads or bigger reefs. The beaches where the LSTs grounded are still there. The old airstrip still shows up on satellite imagery, a straight ...

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Image: US Army | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/q/b/p/landing-at-saidor-wp/rqbp-landing-at-saidor-what-the-ground-remembers.mp3 0:06 6 full