Qualla: Landing on Emirau

Landing on Emirau: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The Marines came ashore ready for a fight that never came. On 20 March 1944, nearly 4,000 men of the 4th Marines landed on Emirau, a sliver of land just eight miles long and two miles wide in the St. Matthias Islands. They expected resistance. They found wooded hills, a tropical quiet, and about 300 islanders who had been watching the war pass them by. The Japanese garrison they had been briefed about did not exist. Within hours, the Marines were no longer assaulting Emirau - they were building on it, hammering together what would become the final steel link in a chain of Allied airbases strangling the great Japanese base at Rabaul.

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

Landing on Emirau: The Argument in Washington

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CPL R. F. Stitbil, Public domain. The whole operation began as a substitute. MacArthur's original plan had called for capturing Kavieng, 90 miles southeast on the tip of New Ireland - an important staging post for Japanese aircraft moving from Truk to Rabaul. His chief of staff, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherl...

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: CPL R. F. Stitbil | Public domain

Landing on Emirau: A Regiment Born from Raiders

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The 4th Marines landing on Emirau was a regiment with ghosts in its name. The original 4th Marines had been destroyed on Corregidor in May 1942, surrendered to the Japanese in one of the darkest moments of the early Pacific war. On 1 February 1944, the Corps reconstituted the reg...

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

Landing on Emirau: The Massacre at Kavieng Wharf

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. The Emirau landing remained peaceful, but the diversion bombardment that covered it carried a terrible weight. A covering force under Rear Admiral Robert Griffin pounded Kavieng with 1,079 rounds of 14-inch battleship fire and more than 12,000 rounds of 5-inch shells - a show of ...

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

Landing on Emirau: Building a Base in the Jungle

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. By nightfall of the first day, 3,727 Marines and 844 tons of cargo were ashore. Within a month, 18,000 men and 44,000 tons of supplies. The construction battalions went to work on Emirau's inland plateau, and by August two heavy bomber airstrips were complete - Inshore and North ...

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

Landing on Emirau: What the Bypass Meant

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. Emirau was the last link in MacArthur's chain. With its airfields operating, Rabaul - once the most formidable Japanese base in the Southwest Pacific, home to 100,000 men - became a strategic dead end, its 93,000-strong garrison left to sit out the war. MacArthur could now turn h...

Read more: Landing on Emirau on Qualla

Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain