Roles of Nadzab and Ulithi in 1944

From Asian Armageddon, 1944–45, by Peter Harmsen (War in the Far East, Book 2; Casemate, 2020), Kindle pp. 134-136:

If one were to point to one vital factor that tilted the balance against the Axis across the globe, it was, in addition to the Soviet willingness to shed blood, the juggernaut of American industrial might. To be of any use it had to be taken from the assembly lines in the United States to where it was needed, and by 1944, it was reaching the farthest corners of the Pacific. It was a miracle of transportation, but it did not come easy or cheap: for every combat division that was deployed in the war against Japan, twice the number of service troops was needed to ship it to the region and keep it supplied. This was a feat that probably no other power could accomplish but the United States, skilled in the operation of a modern continent-sized economy, with maritime commercial ties spanning across the globe to match. The war in the Pacific was a logistical contest as much as a military conflict, and America was uniquely prepared for it.

The peculiar nature of the war changed the face of the Pacific, and it brought the 20th century, with all its technological prowess and organized violence, to areas that sometimes were just emerging from the Stone Age. At Nadzab in New Guinea, originally a mission station with a tiny airfield for small planes, one of the world’s largest airports and transportation hubs had emerged from practically nothing. It was the western terminus of the Air Transport Command’s trans-Pacific flights, and by 1944, it was a beehive of frantic activity, as Navy airman Charles Furey later recalled: “During the daylight hours, the sky is filled with hovering airplanes, and airplanes taking off and landing. Hardly a day goes by when there isn’t a fiery crash on one of the runways. We hear a deep rumble, and then an obelisk of black smoke appears in the sky, a brief monument to some unlucky flight crew.”

Later in the year, Ulithi atoll in the Carolines became for a period the world’s largest fleet base. It was seized against no opposition on September 23, and within weeks, it was home to not only harbor facilities, but also an airstrip and a hospital, and shortly afterwards “Radio Ulithi” began broadcasting. The base even boasted modest facilities for rest and recreation for weary soldiers and sailors, on the small island of Mogmog, ruled by the Micronesian King Ueg, who agreed to move his people to the neighboring island of Fassarai for the duration of the war. At one point when the lagoon was particularly crowded, Mogmog was “so full of bluejackets in shoregoing whites that from a distance it looked like one of those Maine islands where seagulls breed,” according to the official US Navy historian. Still, there was little entertainment: “You would sit around and drink beer and that was about it, and maybe try to go for a swim. But the coral was so sharp that it would cut your legs up and you couldn’t even get in the water,” a serviceman recalled.

Michael Bak, quartermaster on board the destroyer USS Franks, remembered the immense size of Ulithi, which seemed large enough to hold the entire US Navy: “One of the interesting things about Ulithi was that there were so many ships in the fleet coming in that everybody aboard ship had a buddy on another ship. They would come up to the bridge, where the signal gang had a record of the ships in the lagoon. The signalmen always knew, because we had to watch our division commander’s mast for signal messages which were given off on the yardarms. And one of the fellows from our crew would come to the bridge and ask if we could call different ships to see if so-and-so was aboard, and maybe get him to talk,” he said.