identify the area sufficiently, and occasionally loads landed in enemy territory. Hungry men watched every incoming plane for good drops. "Convey our compliments to pilot and crew of Dutch Boy. They really laid delivery on the door step," said Maj. Herbert M. Smith, speaking for the 2d Battalion, 126th Infantry.
Pilots made their turn-around as quickly as possible. Two planes, Sleepy Sally and Eager Beaver, on 4 December made two trips from Port Moresby to Hariko, a distance of go miles, and dropped both loads at Hariko within 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Approximately half of the supplies were seaborne. On 14 November, 45 tons a week of rations for the men on the east flank were ordered shipped to Pongani via Milne Bay. Cargoes were transferred at Milne Bay from ocean freighters to smaller vessels of 50 to 500 tons, which crept around East Cape and through Ward Hunt Strait to Oro Bay. Enemy planes and surface craft made it dangerous for ships to remain at Oro Bay during daylight hours, so loads were transferred to smaller craft which made hazardous nightly runs through reef-studded coastal waters to an advance supply base. There the troops, partly infantry, partly units of the 107th Quartermaster Battalion, put out through the surf in native outrigger canoes and unloaded the cases of food and equipment.
This seaborne supply line remained always under threat of interruption. Attacks by enemy planes on 16–17 November put it out of operation for 3 weeks. The 22d Portable Hospital on the Alacrity, one of the four boats sunk in the first of these attacks, lost four men and all of its equipment and supplies. On 23 December, two enemy PT-type boats sank a ship off Hariko and machine-gunned the supply base. However, through most of the period, the Allied forces on the east flank were successfully supplied by the sea route.
The chain of supply stretched 1,700 miles from bases in Australia to the landing fields, dropping grounds, and coastal dumps. From such forward points, cargoes had to be transported to the men in and directly behind the combat lines. This last vital transport link was formed by a few peeps and some 700 fuzzy-headed native carriers, who delivered their 40 pounds apiece to dumps just outside the range of small-arms fire.
Requests for supplies flowed from the front to Lt. Col. Ralph T. Birkeness, Division Quartermaster at Port Moresby. All were marked
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