New Guinea--SANSAPOR

LANDING EFFECTED WITH NO RESISTANCE

In an amphibious leap of nearly 200 miles from their previous advanced position on Noemfoor Island, U.S. troops on 30 July, 1944, seized the coastal area at Cape Sansapor and Cape Opmarai on the northwest coast of Netherlands New Guinea. Amsterdam and Middleburg Islands, off Cape Opmarai, were also occupied during the day. This placed our forces between the only two major bases remaining to the Japanese in New Guinea,-Sorong, 60 miles to the southwest on the western tip of New Guinea and Manokwari, 150 miles to the east. The landings were achieved without opposition early in the morning and within a few hours the objectives had been attained. Coast Guard manned LST's Nos. 18, 22, 26, 66, 67, 66, 170, 202, and 206 participated. No preliminary bombardment of the landing beaches by the supporting cruisers and destroyers of the Seventh Fleet was necessary. "The only enemy contact reported was with a small force of Japanese about 6 miles east of the beachhead. These were shelled by naval units but did not fight back. By the seizure of Sansapor and the adjacent

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ANGUAR ISLAND

WESTERN CAROLINES OPERATION
ANGUAR ISLAND
17 SEPTEMBER-22 OCTOBER

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area, our troops by-passed Manokwari and isolated about 15,000 Japanese. We were now within 300 miles of the center of Halmahera Island, key point in the eastern defenses of the Netherlands East Indies, and barely more than 600 miles from the southern tip of Mindanao in the Philippines. Airfields in the Sansapor area, whose construction was immediately begun, brought into effective bombing range the Manado district in northeastern Celebes and the east coast of Borneo, regions bordering two of Japan's principal routes to the East Indies through the Straits of Macassar and the Molucca Sea. The Sansapor landings closed a campaign which had its inception just 13 months before. Successive amphibious operations had advanced our lines more than 1,200 miles along the New Guinea coast, while landings in the Northern Solomons, New Britain and the Admiralties had given us control of the waters north and east of New Guinea. Large numbers of the enemy had been cut off and trapped behind our advancing front in such areas as Bougainville, Rabaul, New Ireland, Wewak and Manokwari.

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