Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/News/June 2012/Book reviews

Bougainville

I don't see why the entire island couldn't have been abandoned given that it was of no strategic importance by this stage of the war. You have to be sensitive to dates here. The Australians started arriving on Bougainville in August 1944; but XIV Corps did not depart until December, and the Americal Division remained on Bougainville until the end of January 1945. There were still some American units on Bougainville in August 1945. The base was still a strategically important staging area until February 1945, and could not have been closed before then. By this time, the Australian offensive was well under way. And too, the Jpanese had staged a major offensive on Bougainville as recently as March 1944. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that point, and you are, of course, correct. Given that no-one thought the Japanese were much of a threat by this point a full-scale offensive to defeat them seems unnecessary to me. Nick-D (talk) 02:13, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]