country battle of wau
Lae () is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second - largest city in ___MASK51___ . It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway , which is the main land transport corridor between the Highlands region and the coast . Lae is the largest cargo port of the country and is the industrial hub of ___MASK51___ . The city is known as the " Garden City " and home of the University of Technology . Salamaua was a small town situated on the northeastern coastline of ___MASK51___ , part of Morobe province . The settlement was built on a minor isthmus between the coast with mountains on the inland side and a headland . The closest city is Lae , which can be reached only via boat across the gulf . Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province , on the island of New Britain , in the country of ___MASK51___ . New Britain is an island about 60 kilometres to the east of the island of New Guinea . Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption . The New ___MASK85___ campaign of the Pacific War lasted from January 1942 until the end of the war in August 1945 . During the initial phase in early 1942 , the Empire of ___MASK74___ invaded the Australian - administered territories of the New ___MASK85___ Mandate ( 23 January ) and Papua ( 8 March ) and overran western New ___MASK85___ ( beginning 29 / 30 March ), which was a part of the Netherlands East Indies . During the second phase , lasting from late 1942 until the Japanese surrender , the Allies  consisting primarily of Australian and US forces  cleared the Japanese first from Papua , then the Mandate and finally from the Dutch colony . The Battle of Wau , 29 -- 31 January 1943 , was a battle in the New ___MASK85___ campaign of ___MASK9___ War II . Forces of the Empire of ___MASK74___ sailed from Rabaul and crossed the Solomon Sea and , despite Allied air attacks , successfully reached Lae , where they disembarked . Japanese troops then advanced overland on Wau , an Australian base that potentially threatened the Japanese positions at Salamaua and Lae . A race developed between the Japanese moving overland , hampered by the terrain , and the Australians , moving by air , hampered by the weather . By the time the Japanese reached the Wau area after a trek over the mountains , the Australian defenders had been greatly reinforced by air . In the battle that followed , despite achieving tactical surprise by approaching from an unexpected direction , the Japanese attackers were unable to capture Wau . A sea is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land . More broadly , " the sea " is the interconnected system of Earth ' s salty , oceanic waters  considered as one global ocean or as several principal oceanic divisions . The sea moderates Earth ' s climate and has important roles in the water cycle , ___MASK4___ cycle , and nitrogen cycle . Although the sea has been traveled and explored since prehistory , the modern scientific study of the sea  oceanography  dates broadly to the British " Challenger " expedition of the 1870s . The sea is conventionally divided into up to five large oceanic sections  including the International Hydrographic Organization ' s four named oceans ( the Atlantic , Pacific , Indian , and Arctic ) and the Southern Ocean ; smaller , second - order sections , such as the Mediterranean , are known as " seas ". New ___MASK85___ ( or , historically , "") is a large Island in the South West Pacific region . The Solomon Sea is a sea located within the Pacific Ocean . It lies between ___MASK51___ and the Solomon Islands . Many major battles were fought there during World War II . New Britain , is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago ( named after Otto von Bismarck ) of ___MASK51___ . It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St . George ' s Channel . The main towns of New Britain are Rabaul / Kokopo and Kimbe . The island is roughly the size of Taiwan . While the island was part of German New Guinea , it was named Neupommern (" New Pomerania "). Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of ___MASK51___ . The provincial capital , and largest city , is Lae . The province covers 33 , 705 km² , with a population of 674 , 810 ( 2011 census ), and since the division of Southern Highlands Province in May 2012 it is the most populous province . It includes the Huon Peninsula , the Markham River , and delta , and coastal territories along the Huon Gulf . The province has nine administrative districts , and 101 languages are spoken , including Kâte and Yabim . English and Tok Pisin are common languages in the urban areas , and in some areas forms of Pidgin German are mixed with the native language . ___MASK19___ , officially the Commonwealth of ___MASK19___ , is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent , the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands . It is the world ' s sixth - largest country by total area . The neighbouring countries are ___MASK51___ , Indonesia and East Timor to the north ; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north - east ; and New Zealand to the south - east . ___MASK19___ ' s capital is Canberra , and its largest urban area is Sydney . The Pacific War , sometimes called the Asia - Pacific War , was the theater of ___MASK9___ War II that was fought in the Pacific and ___MASK81___ . It was fought over a vast area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands , the South West Pacific , South - ___MASK81___ , and in ___MASK31___ ( including the 1945 Soviet  Japanese conflict ). The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth ' s oceanic divisions . It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean ( or , depending on definition , to ___MASK42___ ) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east . ___MASK9___ War II ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second ___MASK9___ War , was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945 , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the ___MASK9___ ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing military alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the most widespread war in history , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total war ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the war effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made ___MASK9___ War II the deadliest conflict in human history . ___MASK74___ (" Nippon " or " Nihon " ; formally "" or " Nihon - koku ", means " State of ___MASK74___ ") is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia . Located in the Pacific Ocean , It is lying off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland ( east of ___MASK31___ , Korea , Russia ) and stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East ___MASK31___ Sea and near Taiwan in the southwest . ___MASK75___ is a sovereign country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania lying to the east of ___MASK51___ and northwest of Vanuatu and covering a land area of . The country ' s capital , Honiara , is located on the island of Guadalcanal . The country takes its name from the ___MASK75___ archipelago , which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the North ___MASK75___ ( part of ___MASK51___ ), but excludes outlying islands , such as Rennell and Bellona , and the Santa Cruz Islands . ___MASK51___ ( PNG Hiri Motu : " Papua Niu Gini "), officially the Independent State of ___MASK51___ , is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia , a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia . Its capital , located along its southeastern coast , is Port Moresby . The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua . The Highlands Highway , sometimes known as the Okuk Highway , is the main land highway in ___MASK51___ . It connects several major cities and is vital for the movement of people and goods between the populous Highlands region and the coast . The was the historical Japanese nation - state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern ___MASK74___ . The Markham River is a river in eastern ___MASK51___ . It originates in the Finisterre Range and flows for to empty into the Huon Gulf at Lae .