page_title: Bougainville campaign
section_title: Aerial reduction of Rabaul
hierarchical_section_title: Bougainville campaign / January–February 1944: encircling Rabaul / Aerial reduction of Rabaul
caption_attribution_description: Airraid at Rabaul Harbor
context_page_description: The Bougainville campaign was a series of land and naval battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II between Allied forces and the Empire of Japan, named after the island of Bougainville. It was part of Operation Cartwheel, the Allied grand strategy in the South Pacific. The campaign took place in the Northern Solomons in two phases. The first phase, in which American troops landed and held the perimeter around the beachhead at Torokina, lasted from November 1943 through November 1944.
  The second phase, in which primarily Australian troops went on the offensive, mopping up pockets of starving, isolated but still-determined Japanese, lasted from November 1944 until August 1945, when the last Japanese soldiers on the island surrendered. Operations during the final phase of the campaign saw the Australian forces advance north towards the Bonis Peninsula and south towards the main Japanese stronghold around Buin, although the war ended before these two enclaves were completely destroyed.
context_section_description: Rabaul had already been raided multiple times between 12 October and 2 November by the heavy bombers of General George C. Kenney's Allied Air Forces Southwest Pacific Area. Significant damage was done to ground installations, although the Japanese adapted by moving aircraft facilities underground. Only low-flying techniques such as dive bombing and glide bombing could achieve the accuracy required to pinpoint these installations, as well as neutralising anti-aircraft weapons and attacking vessels in the harbor. To achieve this, the Allies began constructing several airstrips on Bougainville that would allow them to use their smaller, more manoeuvrable, aircraft against Rabaul. The fighter strip on the beach at Torokina began operations on 10 December, while the inland bomber strip "Piva Uncle" followed on Christmas Day, and the inland fighter strip "Piva Yoke" on 22 January.
  General Ralph J. Mitchell, USMC, took over the command of all land-based planes in the theater, called Air Command, Solomons (Airsols), on 20 November. Once the three airstrips in the Torokina Perimeter became fully functional, Mitchell moved Airsols headquarters there from Munda on New Georgia Island. The first raids by Airsols aircraft had limited success. Japanese anti-aircraft fire, especially from ships, had improved greatly since Kenney's raids, and inflicted significant damage on the raiders. The Americans developed new formations and tactics that brought about increasing attrition among the Japanese fighter arm. The Japanese Navy could no longer risk exposing its ships to the relentless air attacks, and by late January, Admiral Kusaka had banned all shipping except barges from Simpson Harbor, which removed any remaining naval threat to the Torokina beachhead.
  By mid-February, when the Allies captured the Green Islands, the Japanese base was no longer able to project air power to interfere. From 8 March, while the Battle for the Perimeter was beginning on Bougainville, Air Solomons bombers began flying unescorted to Rabaul. In describing the effect, Morison writes: "it is significant that the splendid harbor which in October 1943 had held some 300,000 tons of enemy shipping, and had sheltered powerful task forces of the Japanese Navy, was reduced to a third-rate barge depot."
caption: Air raid in Simpson Harbor
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