This confidential report was written by several officers including Lt. Col. C.B. Smith, Col. James L. Dalton, Captain Robert McCalder, Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler, Colonel Douglass Sugg, Lt. Col. Joseph F. Ryneska, Lt. Col. F.B. Evans, Major Charles W. Davis, Lt. Col. John W. Ferris, and others.
Based at Schofield Barracks on Hawaii, the 25th Infantry Division (also called “Tropic Lightning”) was activated in 1941 initially to defend the island in the immediate wake of the attack on Pearl Harbour. The next year it was deployed to assist in the Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands.
The opening chapter details the activities of the division from the end of the Guadalcanal campaign to the beginning of the New Georgia campaign. The division was charged with a defensive mission “repelling any attempted landing by the Japanese in the sector bounded on the east by the Metapona River and on the west by the east delta of the Lunga River.” They also assisted in the development and defence of the base on Russell Island.
On 20 July 1943, the division moved to New Georgia. They were called into action almost immediately and the report outlines their mission which involved attacks on Zieta, Bairoko Harbour, Piru Plantation in late July and August, as well as the operations on Arundel Island. This was all preparatory to the occupation of Kolombangara Island in early October. The second chapter provides a brief overview of each operation, and those following contain a full account of the complete mission. There are comments throughout regarding tactics and logistics (“It is well to note throughout the campaign the terrain proved a greater obstacle than the enemy”) and sections titled “Lesson Learned and Recommendations for Future Operations.” This campaign was part of the wider project of isolating the Japanese-occupied Rabaul: cut off from aid, supplies and men, so as to neutralise it without having to invade it.
The volume is considerably augmented by the 48 photographic illustrations that give the reader a sense of life on the ground. Most of the shots show the division firing mortars, using flame-throwers, on patrol, as well as the various battlefields at Munda, Zieta etc. There are some atmospheric images of the division advancing on Arundel Island, as well as some of casualties being treated at the battalion aid station. The illustrations are by William deJarnette Rutherford, who in 1945 published an account of his time in the Philippines with the 25th division, 165 Days: A Story of the 25th Division on Luzon. The pagination follows US army convention where blanks are not included; there are twenty in this report.
OCLC locates 3 copies at US Army War College, US Army Combined Arms Reserve Library, and Fort Benning.
