Qualla: Naval Base Port Moresby

Naval Base Port Moresby: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MSchlauch, Public domain. Seventy men started it. On 20 June 1943, the first contingent of U.S. Navy Seabees from the 55th Construction Battalion arrived at Port Moresby, detached from Naval Base Brisbane with orders to build an advance base headquarters and communications center for the Seventh Fleet. The United States Army and Australian forces already had substantial operations here, tied to the Port Moresby Airfield Complex that had been defending the city against Japanese air raids since early 1942. What the Navy needed was a forward node - a place where the Pacific war's signals could be handled, its messages relayed, its ships coordinated. By 15 July 1943, less than four weeks after the Seabees arrived, the radio communications station was operational.

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Image: MSchlauch | Public domain

Naval Base Port Moresby: Fairfax Harbor

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Small, John, Public domain. Port Moresby had the geography a fleet wanted. The protected anchorage at Fairfax Harbor-Moresby Harbor runs five miles long by three miles wide, with a bottom of sand and clay that holds an anchor. Headlands block the weather. The city's proximity to the Kokoda Track and the Owe...

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Image: Small, John | Public domain

Naval Base Port Moresby: What the Seabees Built

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. The 55th Battalion's crew of 70 Seabees from Brisbane put up a large radio station and communications center - two transmitters and a power station tied together in the kind of tropical infrastructure that required engineering nobody had quite standardized yet. They built a Port ...

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Image: United States Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain

Naval Base Port Moresby: The Flying Boat Base

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. Port Moresby Flying Boat Base predated the American arrival by years. The Royal Australian Air Force marine section had built it in 1939, with seaplane ramps and mooring areas along the harbor. When the U.S. Navy came, they operated patrol squadron VP-101 - flying Consolidated PB...

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Image: United States Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain

Naval Base Port Moresby: Day-to-Day Operations

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. When the construction was complete and the 55th Battalion went home, a smaller Seabee unit - Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 546 - arrived on 3 April 1944 to handle day-to-day operations. This was the unglamorous work that made everything else possible: maintaining the ra...

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Image: United States Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain

Naval Base Port Moresby: When the War Moved On

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By October 1944, Naval Base Port Moresby had outlived its usefulness. The war had shifted north - to the Philippines, to the Marianas, to bases like Hollandia in Netherlands New Guinea, where MacArthur was running the invasion of the Philippines from an advance headquarters the S...

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Image: Public domain