Battle of the Bismarck Sea
(March 3-4, 1943)

At the same time as the Guadalcanal campaign was raging, an equally bitter series of battles was occurring on the island of New Guinea. In early march, a convoy set out from Rabaul to land much-needed reinforcements in the Buna - Gona area. It was composed of eight transports escorted by eight destroyers, and screened by an inadequate light combat air patrol.

Unbeknownst to the Japanese, the American air force had been experimenting with a new aerial tactic called skip-bombing, wherein the attacking airplane drops a bomb with a long-delay fuze close to the surface and lets it skip into the side of the target ship. This was the first occasion in which the Americans would use this new tactic. As soon as the Japanese came under the radius of American airpower, the convoy was attacked relentlessly. The first day's attack (by high altitude B-17s) sank two transports and damaged a third. Two destroyers were tasked with rescuing the survivors and making a high speed run to New Guinea to deposit them. This they did, and returned to the plodding convoy before dawn the next day.

March 4 proved to be a disaster for the Japanese. Coming within range of American and Australian medium bombers, the convoy was savaged by skip-bombing and strafing. By noon, all six remaining transports and four of the destroyers were sinking or sunk. The remaining four destroyers recovered what few survivors they could and fled north to Rabaul. After this, the Japanese would never again attempt to run slow transports into the face of American airpower.

Battle of the Bismarck SeaJapanAllied
Starting Forces x8
+ 8 transports 		x120 (approx.)
Losses x4 sunk (Arashio, Asashi, Shirayuki, Tokitsukaze)
+8 Transports sunk 		x? destroyed

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