Operation Cartwheel

Operation Cartwheel
Part of the Pacific War
Men of the 1st Marine Division land ashore during the Battle of Cape Gloucester, 26 December 1943.
Date 30 June 1943 – 20 March 1944 Location New Guinea and the Solomon Islands Result Allied victory Japanese base at Rabaul successfully neutralised
Belligerents
United States  Australia  New Zealand	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
SCSWPA: Douglas MacArthur First Army: Thomas Blamey John Lavarack Edmund Herring Leslie Morshead Frank Berryman Sixth Army: Walter Krueger Oscar Griswold Alexander Vandegrift Roy S. Geiger Harold Barrowclough Third Fleet: William F. Halsey Marc Mitscher Seventh Fleet: Arthur S. Carpender Thomas C. Kinkaid Allied Air Forces: George Kenney William Bostock	Commander-in-Chief: Hisaichi Terauchi Combined Fleet: Mineichi Koga Jinichi Kusaka Ryunosuke Kusaka Tomoshige Samejima Sentaro Omori Eighth Area Army: Hitoshi Imamura Rimpei Kato Takeo Ito 17th Army: Harukichi Hyakutake Tsutomu Akinaga 18th Army: Hatazo Adachi Kane Yoshihara Air Forces: Kumaichi Teramoto Giichi Itahana Einosuke Sudo
Units involved
First Army I Corps II Corps Sixth Army XIV Corps I Marine Amphibious Corps Third Fleet Seventh Fleet Task Force 67 Fifth Air Force	Southeast Area Fleet 8th Fleet 11th Air Fleet Eighth Area Army 17th Army 18th Army 38th Division 4th Air Army 6th Air Division 7th Air Division
Strength
250,000	200,000
Casualties and losses
2,000 killed 6,800 wounded	35,300 killed

Operation Cartwheel (1943 – 1944) was a major military operation undertaken by the Allies in the Pacific theatre of World War II. The ultimate goal of Cartwheel was to neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The operation was directed by the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), General Douglas MacArthur, whose forces had advanced along the northeast coast of New Guinea and occupied nearby islands. Allied forces from the South Pacific Area, under Admiral William Halsey, advanced through the Solomon Islands toward Bougainville. The Allied forces from Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States, and various Pacific Islands took part in the operation.^[1]