The Western New Guinea campaign was a series of actions in the New Guinea campaign

New Guinea campaign

The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...

 of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n forces assaulted Japanese

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

 bases and positions in the northwest coastal areas of Netherlands New Guinea

Netherlands New Guinea

Netherlands New Guinea refers to the West Papua region while it was an overseas territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1949 to 1962. Until 1949 it was a part of the Netherlands Indies. It was commonly known as Dutch New Guinea...

 and adjoining parts of the Australian Territory of New Guinea

Territory of New Guinea

The Territory of New Guinea was the Australia-controlled, League of Nations-mandated territory in the north eastern part of the island of New Guinea, and surrounding islands, between 1920 and 1949...

. The campaign began with Operations Reckless and Persecution

Operations Reckless and Persecution

Operation Reckless, known as the Landing at Hollandia and Operation Persecution known as the Aitape landing, were Allied amphibious landings which commenced the Western New Guinea campaign. Both operations commenced on 22 April 1944....

, which were amphibious landings by the U.S. I Corps at Hollandia

Jayapura

Jayapura City is the capital of Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. It is situated on Yos Sudarso Bay . Its approximate population in 2002 was 200,000....

 and Aitape

Aitape

Aitape is a small town of about 8,000 people on the north coast of Papua New Guinea in the Sandaun Province. It is a coastal settlement that is almost equidistant from the provincial capitals of Wewak and Vanimo, and marks the midpoint of the highway between these two capitals...

 on April 22, 1944. Fighting in western New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

 continued until the end of the war.

Major battles and sub-campaigns

• Operations Reckless and Persecution
  Operations Reckless and Persecution
  Operation Reckless, known as the Landing at Hollandia and Operation Persecution known as the Aitape landing, were Allied amphibious landings which commenced the Western New Guinea campaign. Both operations commenced on 22 April 1944....
  
  
  • Landing at Aitape
  • Battle of Hollandia
• Battle of Wakde
  Battle of Wakde
  The Battle of Wakde was part of the New Guinea campaign of World War II. It was fought between the United States and Japan from 15 May 1944 to 18 May 1944....
  
  
• Battle of Lone Tree Hill
• Battle of Morotai
  Battle of Morotai
  The Battle of Morotai, part of the Pacific War, began on September 15, 1944, and continued until the war ended in August 1945. The fighting began when United States and Australian forces landed on the south-west corner of Morotai, a small island in the Netherlands East Indies , which the Allies...
  
  
• Battle of Biak
  Battle of Biak
  The Battle of Biak was part of the New Guinea campaign of World War II. It was fought between the United States Army and the Japanese Army from May 27 to June 22, 1944. It was the first major tactical use of an ambush by the Japanese during the war....
  
  
• Battle of Noemfoor
  Battle of Noemfoor
  The Battle of Noemfoor was a battle of World War II that took place on the island of Noemfoor, in Dutch New Guinea, between 2 July and 31 August 1944. United States and Australian forces attacked to capture Japanese bases on the island.-Background:...
  
  
• Battle of Driniumor River
  Battle of Driniumor River
  The Battle of Driniumor River, also known as The Battle of Aitape, 10 July – 25 August 1944, was part of the Western New Guinea campaign of World War II. Japanese forces attacked United States forces on the Driniumor River, near Aitape in New Guinea...
  
  
• Battle of Sansapor
  Battle of Sansapor
  The Battle of Sansapor was an amphibous landing and subsequent operations around Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea on the Vogelkop Peninsula during World War II....
  
  
• Aitape-Wewak campaign
  Aitape-Wewak campaign
  The Aitape–Wewak campaign was one of the final campaigns of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Between November 1944 and the end of the war in August 1945, the Australian 6th Division, with air and naval support, fought the Imperial Japanese 18th Army in northern New Guinea...