Hollandia

[Lang]

Here are some interesting photos of the American landing at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea. Good for a "spot the type" quiz.

[Mike K]

The yanks had ice cream making machines while the Japs were starving and surviving on yams .

[motto]

From isolated beach to traffic grid lock within a few hours. It's no wonder the local natives had difficulty understanding what was going on and the cargo cults took a hold. Look at it through their eyes. We would be as flummoxed if aliens arrived on Earth today.
There sure is an interesting variety of gear there Lang.

David

[David Dunlop]

What is that trailer in the foreground of the last picture? Seems to be a lot of dead space on the chassis and also, the chassis looks a bit like one trying to be ID'd right now on another thread.

David

[motto]

I would hazard a guess that it is a modified bomb trailer.

David

[Lang]

Here is a selection of photos of Hollandia and nearby Noemfor.

Note the drowned GMC's and Dodges (and even a jeep) in the bottom photo waiting to be fetched by the bulldozers. Armoured dozer on right.

[Lang]

And more Hollandia

[Lang]

And more Hollandia,.

[Lang]

As for the trailer I support David and say a bomb trailer. Looks like a big generator they have tried to keep quiet in a box from the heavy wires coming from it.

Just as a side comment, Hollandia, called Jayapura these days, is one of the prettiest places on earth. Daily flights from Jakarta and Papua New Guinea.

Lang

[motto]

The trailer in question is definitely an M5 bomb trailer. These had a 2-1/2 ton capacity and came with a variety of adaptors and supports to carry a range of different bombs.

David

[Lang]

I have question about the blokes in camouflage uniforms. Says on the clip Engineers.

I have never seen pictures of US Army in New Guinea wearing such uniforms. No Marines were anywhere near these operations.

Anyone with a clue?

PS Found some info saying they were issued as early as 1942 but still have to find any photos of them being worn by the US Army in New Guinea. They were issued in Europe but after a number of friendly fire incidents confusing them with German camouflage they were withdrawn.

Lang

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Lang

I have question about the blokes in camouflage uniforms. Says on the clip Engineers.

I have never seen pictures of US Army in New Guinea wearing such uniforms. No Marines were anywhere near these operations.

Anyone with a clue?

PS Found some info saying they were issued as early as 1942 but still have to find any photos of them being worn by the US Army in New Guinea. They were issued in Europe but after a number of friendly fire incidents confusing them with German camouflage they were withdrawn.

Lang

I had the same thoughts - Marines .

Maybe they got hold of some marine uniforms but that is unlikely . Or it might have been a small Marine detachment on special duties .

[Lang]

Mike

The caption says an Army Engineer battalion. The pattern is different to Marines and there were no Marines anywhere near here. The engineers could well have arrived direct from USA (or Australia) for the landing whereas the bulk of the troops had been working their way up the coast for the past two years.

Apparently Macarthur ordered 150,000 sets of uniforms but these do not appear to have been sent or issued.

The Marines did not have good experience with the early camouflage as it stood out, when troops were moving, much more than the plain green and they went back to the old uniforms. The second style received better reception but right to the end you see Marines in combat with camo shirts and green pants and vice versa.

Lang

[Mike K]

The primitive forklift lifting up the Dodge is interesting , and the large buildings .

One of the few stories my father told us: he was in Port Moresby with his sailor mates , they were up to no good and all kinds of mischief happened . They wanted to get inside a large store building but there was an American soldier on guard out the front . They gave the guard a bottle of whisky , after half an hour the guard was blotto and they walked straight in . Opening heaps of boxes all they found were US army officers dress uniforms .

[Lang]

Mike

Hollandia became a huge base to consolidate the move of American forces up the New Guinea coast. It marked the end of the major American involvement leaving the Australians to continue to fight the Japanese on the north coast and Bougainville.

As you can see from these photos, not only did they use the old Dutch buildings but built a huge complex on top.

Just as they were getting established it was decided to move the whole shooting match to Morotai to form the launch platform for the American assault on the Philippines and the Australian assault on Borneo. That move cost millions of dollars in transport and wasted resources.

[Lang]

Here are photos of the troops at Hollandia. Not a camouflage uniform among them. Note the blokes with the heavy machine guns with the shoulder pads.

[Lang]

This is really interesting. The American landings at Aitape - pronounced eye-ta-pee - (500 miles to the east) on the same day as the Hollandia landings.

No camouflage uniforms but what looks like camouflage packs! Or are they just camouflage ponchos wrapped around their packs to keep them dry?

The anti-aircraft trailer is at Hollandia.

[Mike K]

The LIFE pics are another great source , some of these are in colour including the S.W.P.A.

Morotai , I believe only a small area of the island was actually cleared of the enemy and the Japs were left occupying most of the island.

Some of the AWM documents relating to vehicle procurements are interesting. MacArthur at one point informed the Aust. minister responsible , " if you want anything come directly to me "

[Mike K]

From memory these LIFE pics are scenes in Australia

[Lang]

Mike

I don't think it was as simple as that. Australia had a government purchasing commission in USA and deals were mainly done on a commercial basis.

As discussed in another thread unlike UK, Australia had relatively few Lend Lease acquisitions and bought most of its equipment or traded the value for goods and services provided to US forces in Australia.

Macarthur's people may have helped push Australian orders ahead in the queue for certain operational reasons. Remember that for well over a year the only combat troops in contact with the enemy Macarthur had on the ground were Australian units.

Lang

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I had the same thoughts - Marines .

Maybe they got hold of some marine uniforms but that is unlikely . Or it might have been a small Marine detachment on special duties .

Could they be SeaBees? Although they had military training from the USMC, they were technically speaking USN and could be expected to have slightly different uniforms.

[Lang]

There was a large contingent of Seabees in Hollandia (and everywhere else). I have looked at dozens of photos and find no camouflage except for Marine issue helmet covers.

They distinguish themselves as the scruffiest bunch of blokes in the islands with everyone wearing different clothing. It is interesting that photos of Americans without shirts are fairly uncommon while for the Australians it was standard dress. The Seabees adopted the Australian form and many shirtless photos are to be seen.

The Seabees also had a high percentage of black troops in their combat engineer units unlike the Army who commonly restricted black soldiers to transport and support units.

Here are Seabees at Hollandia.

[Lang]

Solved the camouflage troop question.

They are members of the 1881st Aviation Engineer Battalion. In current terms they would be an Air Force Airfield Construction Regiment.

They had been languishing at the huge air base at Nadzab for over a year (after building the strips their claim to fame was they built the largest playhouse and concert stage in the whole Pacific)

They obviously were issued with brand new clothing for Hollandia. I am sure they would have been the source of much joking in their jungle suits sitting on an airfield grader while the fighting troops wore plain old uniforms.

Lang

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Lang

Mike

I don't think it was as simple as that. Australia had a government purchasing commission in USA and deals were mainly done on a commercial basis.

As discussed in another thread unlike UK, Australia had relatively few Lend Lease acquisitions and bought most of its equipment or traded the value for goods and services provided to US forces in Australia.

Macarthur's people may have helped push Australian orders ahead in the queue for certain operational reasons. Remember that for well over a year the only combat troops in contact with the enemy Macarthur had on the ground were Australian units.

Lang

There was large scale "unofficial" vehicle procurement as well as the official . The unofficial vehicles in the SWPA would have been in high numbers , in the field vehicle swapping was going on continuously.

I have a book written by RAAF wireless mechanics, they would routinely fly long distances ( from Australia to PNG ) to American aircraft dumps to salvage stuff from discarded US aircraft , this was all unofficial of course bit it happened all the time.

The official records in the archives don't tell the whole story

[Lang]

Mike

Depends what you call "large scale". Lot of jeep in a box mythology surrounds these stories.

There were certainly a lot of private small item deals carried out (particularly when Australian soldiers had a beer ration and officers a spirit ration when nearby American units were dry)

There is nothing to support stories of dozens or even hundreds, according to the teller, of vehicles being "borrowed".

Every vehicle had an owner and even the Americans had to account for each one. They had been transported at huge cost and risk of life to the front. For an officer to write off a vehicle when it had been sold/traded/given away was a criminal offence and would only have been done if there was a really good reason or if something of real value was received in return. Most of these deals were done on a local semi-official basis. "You need one of our tip trucks and we need one of your graders"

Of course theft was a major problem (drilling numbers into bodies etc was some defence) and on all major bases there was a punishment camp with many offenders on their way home to serve prison time before a dishonorable discharge.

Lang

[Mike K]

Maybe MacArthur was just offering an alternative where he could bypass the official system, after all he thought he was God and in his mind he could walk on water .

The AWM stuff is all mixed up, I did save some of it but they keep on changing everything around and remove stuff which is annoying to say the least.

[Lang]

Mike

Macarthur was certainly an ego-maniac ( and most were - Montgomery, Patten etc) who surrounded himself with often, incompetent, Yes-men (General Kenney was the exception and he was one of the outstanding Air Force Generals of any country during WW2).

I am sure he was saying he had influence in the right quarters rather than offering specific items.

Lang

[gjamo]

Mike,s Australian pic. Castle Hill in the background taken from close to the existing air field.

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by gjamo

Mike,s Australian pic. Castle Hill in the background taken from close to the existing air field.

I found this on WIKI


By September 1943, the Townsville depot had converted some 175 B-25C's and D's for low-level strafing, and then turned to the B-25G. Between November and the following April, it would add on eighty-two planes two additional .50-cal. machine guns in the nose, two more in the gun tunnel, and a stinger of twin .30's in the tail – modifications requiring 234 man-hours per plane.