In mid-1945, the Australian 7th and 9th Divisions conducted three amphibious operations – code-named Oboe – on Borneo. The Allies enjoyed command of the sea and the air, and used both to isolate and pummel the Japanese defenders. The Borneo landings – well planned, resourced and executed – are rightly considered the acme of amphibious operations, yet their strategic and operational utility has been questioned. By 1945, US forces had retaken the Philippines and were pressing towards Japan, while Australia was tasked with the conduct of these landings. Japan had yet to surrender and there was still fighting ahead, but Japan’s defeat was certain. This book describes the planning and execution of the three landings: Oboe 1 on Tarakan, Oboe 6 on Brunei and Oboe 2 on Balikpapan. Although the political and strategic context is covered, this book focuses on operations and tactics, and demonstrates how the Oboe operations benefited from amphibious expertise developed in the Pacific theatre. As amphibious operations bring together land, naval and air assets to act in concert, amphibious expertise is joint in nature. This expertise comprised the development and use of specialist equipment, creation of fit-for-purpose command and control systems, joint and Allied interoperability and an overall amphibious mindset. Dayton McCarthy uses official histories and war diaries to explain these complex operations, focusing on the often-overlooked aspects such as the logistics, staff work and planning and the role of air and naval forces. As Australia again re-examines the role of amphibious operations in its near region, the subject matter of this book is timely.

A fascinating account of the last major Allied operation in the South-West Pacific, and the largest Australian military operation of World War II. A week after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese troops landed near Brunei on the South-East Asian island of Borneo. Within eight weeks, the entire island had been overrun, and its Dutch and British Indian defenders had been ejected. By early April 1942, the entire Dutch East Indies were in Japanese hands, and remained under Japanese occupation for a further three years. The late-1944 US landings in the Philippines effectively cut oil- and resource-rich Borneo off from Japan. Now that it was considered a worthy strategic prize for the Allies, General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the South-West Pacific Theater, began planning for the recapture of the key island. This compelling work explores the planning and execution of Operation Oboe, which was spearheaded by Australian troops but involved naval and special forces from the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. Detailed maps explore the six separate stages, each of which involved amphibious landings. Battlescene artworks and photographs bring to life notable events such as the capture of Tarakan, Labuan, Brunei and Sarawak. Also covered are the Allied special forces guerrilla campaigns and Australian 7th Infantry Division's landing at Balikapan – which proved to be the turning point of this hard-fought campaign.

In 1944 with the war in Europe turning in the Allies’ favor, Japan still occupied vast swathes of South East Asia and the Pacific. In Burma, the seemly unstoppable Japanese advance was halted at Kohima and Imphal in June and July 1944. Six months later the advances made by British-led forces enabled the re-opening of the supply routes from India to US forces in China. It was not until Spring 1945 that British-led forces seized first Mandalay and then the port city of Rangoon after a year of grueling fighting. Admiral Nimitz’s and General MacArthur’s forces meanwhile were overcoming fanatical Japanese resistance as they invaded Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Leyte and Luzon in late 1944. Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell to the Allies in early 1945. These successes enabled USAAF Superfortresses to bomb mainland Japan. Late Spring/early Summer 1945 saw the steady recapture of the Northern Solomons and Brunei, Borneo and former Dutch colonies. The Soviets were advancing into Manchuria and Korea. The atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 finally forced the Japanese to surrender without the inevitable carnage of an invasion of their mainland. The tumultuous events of the final year of the Second World War in the Far East are brilliantly described here in contemporary well captioned images and succinct text.

The sea shaped the course and conduct of World War II, from the first moments of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945. The impact could be felt far beyond the shoreline, as the arms and armies carried across the oceans were ultimately destined to wage war ashore. Populations and industries depended on the raw materials and supplies in a war that increasingly became a contest of national will and economic might. Ultimately, it was the war at sea that linked numerous regional conflicts and theaters of operation into a global war. As the war grew in complexity and covered an increasingly larger geographical area, the organization of the maritime effort and the impact it had on the formulation of national strategy also evolved. This volume illustrates the impact of naval operations on the Second World War by highlighting topics previously neglected in the scholarship. In doing so, it provides new insights into political, strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of the maritime dimension of the war.

As the United States began its campaign against numerous Japanese-held islands in the Pacific, Japanese tactics required them to develop new weapons and strategies. One of the most crucial to the island assaults was a new group of amphibious gunboats that could deliver heavy fire close in to shore as American forces landed. These gunboats were also to prove important in the interdiction of inter-island barge traffic and, late in the war, the kamikaze threat. Several variations of these gunboats were developed, based on the troop carrying LCI(L). They included three conversions of the LCI(L), with various combinations of guns, rockets and mortars, and a fourth gunboat, the LCS(L), based on the same hull but designed as a weapons platform from the beginning. By the end of the war the amphibious gunboats had proven their worth.

The Japanese occupation of both British Borneo – Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo – and Dutch Borneo in 1941 to 1945 is a much understudied subject. Of particular interest is the occupation of Dutch Borneo, governed by the Imperial Japanese Navy that had long-term plans for ‘permanent possession’. This book surveys Borneo under Western colonialism, examines pre-war Japanese interests in Borneo, and analyses the Japanese military invasion and occupation. It goes on to consider the nature of Japanese rule in Borneo, contrasting the different regimes of the Imperial Japanese Army, which ruled the north, and the Navy. A wide range of issues are discussed, including the incorporation of the economy in the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere and the effects of this on Borneo’s economy. The book also covers issues such as the relationship with the various indigenous inhabitants, with Islam and the Muslim community, and the Chinese, as well as topics of acculturation and propaganda, and major uprisings and mass executions. It examines the impact of the wartime conditions and policies on the local multiethnic peoples and their responses, providing an invaluable contribution to the greater understanding of the significance of the wartime Japanese occupation in the historical development of Borneo.

March 1945. A handful of young Allied operatives are parachuted into the remote jungled heart of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, east of Singapore, there to recruit the island’s indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet most have barely encountered Asian or indigenous people before, speak next to no Borneo languages, and know little about Dayaks, other than that they have been – and may still be – headhunters. They fear that on arrival the Dayaks will kill them or hand them over to the Japanese. For their part, some Dayaks have never before seen a white face. So begins the story of Operation Semut, an Australian secret operation launched by the organisation codenamed Services Reconnaisance Department – popularly known as Z Special Unit – in the final months of WWII. Anthropologist Christine Helliwell has called on her years of first-hand knowledge of Borneo, interviewed more than one hundred Dayak people and all the remaining Semut operatives, and consulted thousands of military and other documents to piece together this astonishing story. Focusing on the operation's activities along two of Borneo’s great rivers – the Baram and Rejang – the book provides a detailed military history of Semut II’s and Semut III’s brutal guerrilla campaign against the Japanese, and reveals the decisive but long-overlooked Dayak role in the operation. But this is no ordinary history. Helliwell captures vividly the sounds, smells and tastes of the jungles into which the operatives are plunged, an environment so terrifying that many are unsure whether jungle or Japanese is the greater enemy. And she takes us into the lives and cavernous longhouses of the Dayaks on whom their survival depends. The result is a truly unique account of the encounter between two very different cultures amidst the savagery of the Pacific War.

From 1942–1945 the Allies’ war in the Southwest Pacific was effectively a bilateral coalition between the United States and Australia under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. By charting the evolution of the military effectiveness of the US-Australian alliance, MacArthur’s Coalition puts the relationship between the United States and Australia at the center of the war against Japan. Drawing on new primary source material, Peter J. Dean has written the first substantial book-length treatment of the coalition as a combined military force. This expansive and ambitious book provides a fresh perspective on the Pacific War by providing a close-up, in-depth account of operations in the Southwest Pacific from the Kokoda Trail campaign to the reconquest of the Philippines and Borneo. Dean’s work takes the reader deep into the key military headquarters in the Southwest Pacific and reveals the discussions, debates, and arguments between key commanders and staff officers during the course of planning and waging a monumental conflict. Drawing upon archival records across three continents, Dean brings the qualities of these senior officers to life by exploring the critical importance of personalities and leadership in overcoming cultural, doctrinal, and organizational divides in the largely unequal alliance. Set against the practicalities of fighting a fanatical enemy in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the war, his book shows how, despite these divides and MacArthur’s difficult personality, the US-Australian coalition was able to forge a highly effective and ultimately triumphant fighting machine. With its unprecedented view of the joint nature of operations in the Southwest Pacific and its focus on frontline commanders and units in forging a successful fighting force, MacArthur’s Coalition illuminates a critical aspect of the Allied victory in World War II.