Hitoshi Imamura
Halsey's counterparts at Rabaul, Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka and Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura, had no intention of allowing New Georgia to fall the way Guadalcanal had. They loaded 4,000 troops on destroyers, brought them down The Slot on the night of 4–5 July and landed them at Vila on the southeast coast of Kolombangara Island. From there, the men would be ferried across Kula Gulf on barges to Bairoko on the northwest coast of New Georgia, before moving along eight-mile jungle trail to Munda.