From October 1943, the 20th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Shigemasa Aoki, was transferred to the Japanese Eighteenth Army in the Southern Area Command (New Guinea). Aoki died of malaria in July 1943, and was replaced by Lieutenant General Shigeru Katagiri, who established his headquarters near Gali, and marched with his troops to reinforce Finschhafen after the Allied landings at Lae and Nadzab on 4 September 1943. Katagiri was the primary Japanese commander at the Battle of Finschhafen between September and October 1943 in the Huon Peninsula campaign. He gathered his forces at Sattelberg but was forced to retreat after being defeated during the Battle of Sattelberg on 25 October 1943.