Episode 13 - “Melanesian Nightmare”

Summary

EP13's action is set almost entirely in and around New Guinea, which was under Allied control before Japan's first inroads early in 1942. Musically, the episode is distinguished by Bennett's numerous concert-march strains—more than ten minutes in total—along with “jungle music” scoring second in length only to EP6's Guadalcanal coverage.

The program opens just after the early May 1942 “Battle of the Coral Sea.” Japan, hoping to break America's bonds with Australia, was unsuccessful in its naval effort to invade Port Moresby, on New Guinea's southern coast, and is forced to attack Port Moresby overland from their northern-coast base in Buna: “The formidable Owen Stanley mountain range stands between the Japanese base of Buna in northern New Guinea and Port Moresby in the south—miles of jagged hills and gloomy gorges, steep escarpments and trackless jungle: a frightful natural barrier.”

Bennett's atmospheric music at 1:37 for aerial footage of the windswept Owen Stanleys [A] is shown here in detail, and his “jungle music” at 2:01 for the intrepid Japanese soldiers [B] recalls similar EP6 scoring. At 2:55, EP13's underscore gains in tempo: “This is the part of the world called Melanesia—the ‘black islands.’ For the Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen who must throw back the Japanese, the Melanesian nightmare begins.”

Australian infantrymen, with the help of native Papuan guides, halt Japan's advance only thirty miles outside Port Moresby, after which the Allies push northward through the jungle, routing the Japanese. A no-narration sequence of the inland conflict from both sides’ perspective lasts from 3:34 to 4:58. J-6 is featured prominently, and in complete form at 4:37. One specific Allied goal was the plains outside Dobodura, seen at 5:08: “Months of bitter, brutal combat. But the allies push inexorably forward, into the strategic Dobodura plain with its vital airstrip, only six miles from New Guinea's north coast.” Though the fight proved costly, in 1942–43 the Allies would eventually build the area up to a major complex of fifteen airstrips.

Recapped next at 5:19 is the “Battle of Buna-Gona” which began in November 1942. Bennett's music turns slow and reflective: “The Japanese retreat becomes a rout. Enemy garrisons give up Buna, Gona, Sanananda—north-coast bases that will serve as stepping stones for future Allied advance,” although “For both sides the campaign has been a horror of death, wounds, disease.”